BLENKINSOP [stopping him resolutely] No: I know what youre going to say;
but I wont take it. Ive never borrowed a penny; and I never will. Ive
nothing left but my friends; and I wont sell them. If none of you were
to be able to meet me without being afraid that my civility was leading
up to the loan of five shillings, there would be an end of everything
for me. I'll take your old clothes, Colly, sooner than disgrace you by
talking to you in the street in my own; but I wont borrow money. I'll
train it as far as the twopence will take me; and I'll tramp the rest.
WALPOLE. Youll do the whole distance in my motor. [They are all greatly
relieved; and Walpole hastens to get away from the painful subject by
adding] Did he get anything out of you, Mr Schutzmacher?
SCHUTZMACHER [shakes his head in a most expressive negative].
WALPOLE. You didnt appreciate his drawing, I think.
SCHUTZMACHER. Oh yes I did. I should have liked very much to have kept
the sketch and got it autographed.
B. B. But why didnt you?
SCHUTZMACHER. Well, the fact is, when I joined Dubedat after his
conversation with Mr Walpole, he said the Jews were the only people
who knew anything about art, and that though he had to put up with
your Philistine twaddle, as he called it, it was what I said about the
drawings that really pleased him. He also said that his wife was greatly
struck with my knowledge, and that she always admired Jews. Then he
asked me to advance him 50 pounds on the security of the drawings.
B. B. { [All } No, no. Positively! Seriously!
WALPOLE { exclaiming } What! Another fifty!
BLENKINSOP { together] } Think of that!
SIR PATRICK { } [grunts]!
SCHUTZMACHER. Of course I couldnt lend money to a stranger like that.
B. B. I envy you the power to say No, Mr Schutzmacher. Of course, I
knew I oughtnt to lend money to a young fellow in that way; but I simply
hadnt the nerve to refuse. I couldnt very well, you know, could I?
SCHUTZMACHER. I dont understand that. I felt that I couldnt very well
lend it.
WALPOLE. What did he say?
SCHUTZMACHER. Well, he made a very uncalled-for remark about a Jew not
understanding the feelings of a gentleman. I must say you Gentiles are
very hard to please. You say we are no gentlemen when we lend money; and
when we refuse to lend it you say just the same. I didnt mean to behave
badly. As I told him, I might have lent it to him if he had been a Jew
himself.
SIR PATRICK [with a grunt] And what did he say to that?
SCHUTZMACHER. Oh, he began trying to persuade me that he was one of the
chosen people--that his artistic faculty shewed it, and that his name
was as foreign as my own. He said he didnt really want 50 pounds; that
he was only joking; that all he wanted was a couple of sovereigns.
B. B. No, no, Mr Schutzmacher. You invented that last touch. Seriously,
now?
SCHUTZMACHER. No. You cant improve on Nature in telling stories about
gentlemen like Mr Dubedat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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