posed to be giving the final order for the
erection of the very edifice we are now in.'

'And a very handsome building it is,' observed Sponge, thinking he would
make it a shooting-gallery when he got it.

'Yes, it's a handsome thing in its way,' assented Jawleyford; 'better if it
had been water-tight, perhaps,' added he, as a big drop splashed upon the
crown of his head.

'The contents must be very valuable,' observed Sponge.

'Very valuable,' replied Jawleyford. 'There's a thing I gave two hundred
and fifty guineas for--that vase. It's of Parian marble, of the Cinque
Cento period, beautifully sculptured in a dance of Bacchanals, arabesques,
and chimera figures; it was considered cheap. Those fine monkeys in Dresden
china, playing on musical instruments, were forty; those bronzes of
scaramouches on ormolu plinths were seventy; that ormolu clock, of the
style of Louis Quinze, by Le Roy, was eighty; those Sevres vases were a
hundred--mounted, you see, in ormolu, with lily candelabra for ten lights.
The handles,' continued he, drawing Sponge's attention to them, 'are very
handsome--composed of satyrs holding festoons of grapes and flowers, which
surround the neck of the vase; on the sides are pastoral subjects, painted
in the highest style--nothing can be more beautiful or more chaste.'

'Nothing,' assented Sponge.

'The pictures I should think are most valuable,' observed Jawleyford. 'My
friend Lord Sparklebury said to me the last time he was here--he's now in
Italy, increasing his collection--"Jawleyford, old boy," said he, for we
are very intimate--just like brothers, in fact; "Jawleyford, old boy, I
wonder whether your collection or mine would fetch most money, if they were
Christie-&-Manson'd." "Oh, your lordship," said I, "your Guidos, and
Ostades, and Poussins, and Velasquez, are not to be surpassed." "True,"
replied his lordship, "they are fine--very fine; but you have the Murillos.
I'd like to give you a good round sum," added he, "to pick out half-a-dozen
pictures out of your gallery." Do you understand pictures?' continued
Jawleyford, turning short on his friend Sponge.

'A little,' replied Sponge, in a tone that might mean either yes or no--a
great deal or nothing at all.

Jawleyford then took him and worked him through his collection--talked of
light and shade, and tone, and depth of colouring, tints, and pencillings;
and put Sponge here and there and everywhere to catch the light (or rain,
as the cas