Although my nerves were not delicate enough to detect the odour of plebeian fingers which had offended Mr. Fairlie’s nostrils, my taste was sufficiently educated to enable me to appreciate the value of the drawings, while I turned them over.  They were, for the most part, really fine specimens of English water-colour art; and they had deserved much better treatment at the hands of their former possessor than they appeared to have received.

“The drawings,” I answered, “require careful straining and mounting; and, in my opinion, they are well worth——­”

“I beg your pardon,” interposed Mr. Fairlie.  “Do you mind my closing my eyes while you speak?  Even this light is too much for them.  Yes?”

“I was about to say that the drawings are well worth all the time and trouble——­”

Mr. Fairlie suddenly opened his eyes again, and rolled them with an expression of helpless alarm in the direction of the window.

“I entreat you to excuse me, Mr. Hartright,” he said in a feeble flutter.  “But surely I hear some horrid children in the garden—­ my private garden—­below?”

“I can’t say, Mr. Fairlie.  I heard nothing myself.”

“Oblige me—­you have been so very good in humouring my poor nerves—­oblige me by lifting up a corner of the blind.  Don’t let the sun in on me, Mr. Hartright!  Have you got the blind up?  Yes?  Then will you be so very kind as to look into the garden and make quite sure?”

I complied with this new request.  The garden was carefully walled in, all round.  Not a human creature, large or small, appeared in any part of the sacred seclusion.  I reported that gratifying fact to Mr. Fairlie.

“A thousand thanks.  My fancy, I suppose.  There are no children, thank Heaven, in the house; but the servants (persons born without nerves) will encourage the children from the village.  Such brats—­ oh, dear me, such brats!  Shall I confess it, Mr. Hartright?—­I sadly want a reform in the construction of children.  Nature’s only idea seems to be to make them machines for the production of incessant noise.  Surely our delightful Raffaello’s conception is infinitely preferable?”

He pointed to the picture of the Madonna, the upper part of which represented the conventional cherubs of Italian Art, celestially provided with sitting accommodation for their chins, on balloons of buff-coloured cloud.

“Quite a model family!” said Mr. Fairlie, leering at the cherubs.  “Such nice round faces, and such nice soft wings, and—­nothing else.  No dirty little legs to run about on, and no noisy little lungs to scream with.  How immeasurably superior to the existing construction!  I will close my eyes again, if you will allow me.  And you really can manage the drawings?  So glad.  Is there anything else to settle? if there is, I think I have forgotten it.  Shall we ring for Louis again?”

Being, by this time, quite as anxious, on my side, as Mr. Fairlie evidently was on his, to bring the interview to a speedy conclusion, I thought I would try to render the summoning of the servant unnecessary, by offering the requisite suggestion on my own responsibility.