‘True,’ replied Jawleyford, comforted—­’true,’ repeated he, looking affectionately at it; ’I should say it was very like—­like as anything can be.  You are rather too much above it there, you see; sit down here,’ continued he, leading Sponge to an ottoman surrounding a huge model of the column in the Place Vendome, that stood in the middle of the room—­’sit down here now, and look, and say if you don’t think it like?’

[Illustration:  ‘THIS, OF COURSE, YOU KNOW?’]

‘Oh, very like,’ replied Sponge, as soon as he had seated himself.  ’I see it now, directly; the mouth is yours to a T.’

‘And the chin.  It’s my chin, isn’t it?’ asked Jawleyford.

’Yes; and the nose, and the forehead, and the whiskers, and the hair, and the shape of the head, and everything.  Oh!  I see it now as plain as a pikestaff,’ observed Sponge.

‘I thought you would,’ rejoined Jawleyford comforted—­’I thought you would; it’s generally considered an excellent likeness—­so it should, indeed, for it cost a vast of money—­fifty guineas! to say nothing of the lotus-leafed pedestal it’s on.  That’s another of me,’ continued Jawleyford, pointing to a bust above the fireplace, on the opposite side of the gallery; ’done some years since—­ten or twelve, at least—­not so like as this, but still like.  That portrait up there, just above the “Finding of Moses,” by Poussin,’ pointing to a portrait of himself attitudinizing, with his hand on his hip, and frock-coat well thrown back, so as to show his figure and the silk lining to advantage, ’was done the other day, by a very rising young artist; though he has hardly done me justice, perhaps—­particularly in the nose, which he’s made far too thick and heavy; and the right hand, if anything, is rather clumsy; otherwise the colouring is good, and there is a considerable deal of taste in the arrangement of the background, and so on.’

‘What book is it you are pointing to?’ asked Sponge.

‘It’s not a book,’ replied Mr. Jawleyford, ’it’s a plan—­a plan of this gallery, in fact.  I am supposed 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,