The next day, while he was at breakfast—he breakfasted rather late—Tommy Burgrave was announced. Tommy, who had already eaten with the appetite of youth, immediately after his cold bath, declined to join his uncle in a meal, but for the sake of sociability trifled with porridge, kidneys, cold ham, hot rolls and marmalade, while Quixtus feasted on a soft-boiled egg and a piece of dry toast. When his barmecide meal was over, Tommy came to the business of the day. For some inexplicable, unconjecturable reason his monthly allowance had gone, disappeared, vanished into the _Ewigkeit_. What in the world was he to do? Now it must be explained that Tommy Burgrave was an orphan, the son of Ephraim Quixtus’s only sister, and his whole personal estate a sum of money invested in a mortgage which brought him in fifty pounds a year. On fifty pounds a year a young man cannot lead the plenteous life as far as food and raiment are concerned, rent a studio (even though it be a converted first-floor back, as Tommy’s was) and a bedroom in Romney Place, travel (even on a bicycle, as Tommy did) about England, and entertain ladies to dinner at restaurants—even though the ladies may be only models, and the restaurants in Soho. He must have other financial support. This other financial support came to him in the guise of a generous allowance from his uncle. But as the generosity of his instincts—and who in the world would be a cynic, animated blight, curmudgeon enough to check the generous instincts of youth?—as, I say, the generosity of his instincts outran the generosity of his allowance, towards the end of every month Tommy found himself in a most naturally inexplicable position. At the end of the month, therefore, Tommy came to Russell Square and trifled with porridge, kidneys, cold ham, hot rolls and marmalade, while his uncle feasted on a soft-boiled egg and a piece of dried toast, and, at the end of his barmecide feast, came to business. On the satisfactory conclusion thereof (and it had never been known to be otherwise) Tommy lit a cigar—he liked his uncle’s cigars. “Well,” said he, “what do you think of Clementina?” “I think,” said Quixtus, with a faint luminosity lighting his china-blue eyes, “I think that Clementina, being an artist, is a problem. But if she weren’t an artist and in a different class of life, she would be a model old family servant in a great house in which the family, by no chance whatever, resided.” Tommy laughed. “It seemed tremendously funny to bring you two together.” Quixtus smiled indulgently. “So it was a practical joke on your part?” “Oh no!” cried Tommy, flaring up. “You mustn’t think that. There’s only one painter living who has, her power—and I’m one of the people who know it—and I wanted her to paint you. Besides, she is a thorough good sort—through and through.”