"O, ah! that's what brought me here; I forgot to tell you. Here's a ticket for the private view. I think you ought to be there,--show yourself, you know, and that kind of thing. And look here: if you see me pointing you out to people, don't you be offended. Ive lived longer in the world than you, and I know what's what. Besides, you're part of my establishment just now, and I know the way to work the oracle. So don't mind it, that's all. Very decent glass of sherry, Ludlow! I say--excuse me, but if you _could_ wear a white waistcoat to-morrow, I think I should like it. English gentleman, you know, and all that! Some of Caniche's fellows are very seedy-looking duffers." Geoff smiled, took the ticket, and promised to come, terribly uncomfortable at the prospect of notoriety which Mr. Stompff had opened for him. But that worthy had not done with him yet. "After it's all over," said he, "you must come and dine with me at Blackwall. Regular business of mine, sir. I take down my men and two or three of the newspaper chaps, after the private view, and give 'em as good a dinner as money can buy. No stint! I say to Lovegrove, 'You know me! The best, and damn the expense!' and Lovegrove does it, and it's all right! It would be difficult for a fellow to pitch into any of my men with a recollection of my Moselle about him, and a hope that it'll come again next year, eh? Well--won't detain you now; see you to-morrow; and don't forget the dinner." Do you not know this kind of man, and does he not permeate English society?--this coarse ruffian, whose apparent good-nature disarms your nascent wrath, and yet whose good-nature you know to be merely vulgar ostentatious self-assertion under the guise of _bonhomie_. I take the character I have drawn, but I declare he belongs to all classes. I have seen him as publisher to author, as attorney to young barrister, as patron to struggler generally. Geoffrey Ludlow shrank before him, but shrank in his old feeble hesitating way; he had not the pluck to shake off the yoke, and bid his employer go to the devil. It was a new phase of life for him--a phase which promised competence at a time when competence was required; which, moreover, rid him of any doubt or anxiety about the destination of his labour, which to a man of Ludlow's temperament was all in all. How many of us are there who will sell such wares as Providence has given us the power of producing at a much less rate than we could otherwise obtain for them, and to most objectionable people, so long as we are enabled to look for and to get a certain price, and are absorbed from the ignominy of haggling, even though by that haggling we should be tenfold enriched! So Geoffrey Ludlow took Mr. Stompff's ticket, and gave him his pale sherry, and promised to dine with him, and bowed him out; and then went back into his studio and lit a fresh pipe and sat down to think calmly over all that was about to befall him.