"Yes. Look at his hideously fat, smooth face, and his long greasy hair tucked behind his ears. Look at his open throat, and--confound the animal, yes--a crimson satin tie. Harry, I shall be had up one of these days for an atrocious assault upon that creature. I shall lie in wait for him like a bravo, and armed with a pair of new scissors I shall cut his hair. Is it possible to prevail upon him to go about clothed, and in his right mind?" "For shame, Jemmy! and you a brother artist." "Brother artist be hanged! You don't call that thing an artist." "Why, my dear boy, he's acknowledged in society as the apostle of the poet-painters' school." "Good God!" "My dear boy, do restrain yourself," laughed the other. "I can't help it. I do like a man to be a man, and for goodness' sake look at that thing." "That thing," as Magnus so contemptuously dubbed him, was certainly striking in appearance, as the open carriage in which he was riding came to a standstill, and he signed to the footman to let him out. For as he descended it was to stand upon a very thin pair of legs that in no sense corresponded with his plump, white, boyish face. It was a handsome, well-appointed carriage from whose front seat he had alighted, the back being occupied by two ladies of between twenty and thirty, who looked as if their costume had been copied from a disinterred bas-relief; so cold and neutral were their lines that they might have been lady visitors to the Grosvenor Gallery, instead of maidens to whom the word "aesthetic" was hardly known. For the Graeco-Roman extended to their hair, which stood out from their foreheads, looking singed and frizzed as if scorched by the burning thoughts that were in their brains; for even in those days there were ladies who delighted to belong to the pre-Raphaelic _cum_ fleshly school of painting and poetry, and took pains to show by their uniform that they were of the blessed. As the footman folded the steps and closed the door, the gentleman--to wit, Mr Perry-Morton, of Saint Agnes', Park Road--posed himself in an artistic attitude with one arm upon the carriage-door, crossed one leg over the other, and gazed in the faces of his sisters, one delicately-gloved hand in correct harmony of tint playing with a cambric handkerchief, specked with toy flowers of the same tone. As he posed himself, so did the two ladies. The nearer curled herself gracefully, all but the legs, in a pantherine style in the corner of the carriage, and looked at her brother sweetly through the frizz of hair, as if she were asking him to see if there were a parting. The further drooped over florally in a manner that in another ordinary being would have suggested crick in the neck, but here, as with her brother and sister, everything was so deliriously unstudied--or well studied--that she only gave the idea of a bending flower--say, a bud--or a pallid virgin and martyr upon painted glass. "Oh, Lord!" said Magnus, aloud.