Why, there's a resemblance, certainly,' said Sponge, 'now that one knows.
But I shouldn't have guessed it was you.'

'Oh, my dear Mr. Sponge!' exclaimed Jawleyford, in a tone of mortification,
'Do you _really_ mean to say you don't think it like?'

'Why, yes, it's like,' replied Sponge, seeing which way his host wanted it;
'it's like, certainly; the want of expression in the eye makes such a
difference between a bust and a picture.'

'True,' replied Jawleyford, comforted--'true,' repeated he, looking
affectionately at it; 'I should say it was very like--like as anything can
be. You are rather too much above it there, you see; sit down here,'
continued he, leading Sponge to an ottoman surrounding a huge model of the
column in the Place Vendome, that stood in the middle of the room--'sit
down here now, and look, and say if you don't think it like?'

[Illustration: 'THIS, OF COURSE, YOU KNOW?']

'Oh, _very_ like,' replied Sponge, as soon as he had seated himself. 'I see
it now, directly; the mouth is yours to a T.'

'And the chin. It's my chin, isn't it?' asked Jawleyford.

'Yes; and the nose, and the forehead, and the whiskers, and the hair, and
the shape of the head, and everything. Oh! I see it now as plain as a
pikestaff,' observed Sponge.

'I thought you would,' rejoined Jawleyford comforted--'I thought you would;
it's generally considered an excellent likeness--so it should, indeed, for
it cost a vast of money--fifty guineas! to say nothing of the lotus-leafed
pedestal it's on. That's another of me,' continued Jawleyford, pointing to
a bust above the fireplace, on the opposite side of the gallery; 'done some
years since--ten or twelve, at least--not so like as this, but still like.
That portrait up there, just above the "Finding of Moses," by Poussin,'
pointing to a portrait of himself attitudinizing, with his hand on his hip,
and frock-coat well thrown back, so as to show his figure and the silk
lining to advantage, 'was done the other day, by a very rising young
artist; though he has hardly done me justice, perhaps--particularly in the
nose, which he's made far too thick and heavy; and the right hand, if
anything, is rather clumsy; otherwise the colouring is good, and there is a
considerable deal of taste in the arrangement of the background, and so
on.'

'What book is it you are pointing to?' asked Sponge.

'It's not a book,' replied Mr. Jawleyford, 'it's a plan--a plan of this
gallery, in fact. I am sup