Chapter 2

 Three weeks later Lord Badgery was aroused from his usual after-luncheon somnolence¹ by the arrival of a telegram. The message was a short one. "Found.—SPODE." A look of pleasure and intelligence made human Lord Badgery's clayey face of surfeit². "No answer," he said. The footman padded away on noiseless feet.

 

Lord Badgery closed his eyes and began to contemplate³. Found! What a room he would have! There would be nothing like it in the world. The frescoes⁴, the fireplace, the mirrors, the ceiling.... And a small, shrivelled old man clambering about the scaffolding, agile⁵ and quick like one of those whiskered little monkeys at the Zoo, painting away, painting away.... Fanny Kemble as Belvidera, Hector and Andromache, or why not the Duke of Clarence in the Butt⁶, the Duke of Malmsey, the Butt of Clarence. ... Lord Badgery was asleep.

 

Spode did not lag long behind his telegram. He was at Badgery House by six o'clock. His lordship was in the nineteenth-century chamber⁷, engaged in clearing away with his own hands the bric-à-brac. Spode found him looking hot and out of breath.

 

"Ah, there you are," said Lord Badgery. You see me already preparing for the great man's coming. Now you must tell me all about him.

 

"He's older even than I thought," said Spode. "He's ninety-seven this year. Born in 1816. Incredible, isn't it! There, I'm beginning at the wrong end."

 

"Begin where you like," said Badgery genially⁸.

 

"I won't tell you all the incidents of the hunt. You've no idea what a job I had to run him to earth. It was like a Sherlock Holmes story, immensely elaborate, too elaborate. I shall write a book about it some day. At any rate, I found him at last."

 

"Where?"

 

"In a sort of respectable slum in Holloway, older and poorer and lonelier than you could have believed possible. I found out how it was he came to be forgotten, how he came to drop out of life in the way he did. He took it into his head, somewhere about the 'sixties, to go to Palestine to get local colour for his religious pictures—scapegoats and things, you know. Well, he went to Jerusalem and then on to Mount Lebanon and on and on, and then, somewhere in the middle of Asia Minor⁹, he got stuck. He got stuck for about forty years."

 

"But what did he do all that time?"

 

"Oh, he painted, and started a mission, and converted three Turks, and taught the local Pashas the rudiments¹⁰ of English, Latin, and perspective, and God knows what else. Then, in about 1904, it seems to have occurred to him that he was getting rather old and had been away from home for rather a long time. So he made his way back to England, only to find that everyone he had known was dead, that the dealers¹¹ had never heard of him and wouldn't buy his pictures, that he was simply a ridiculous old figure of fun. So he got a job as a drawing-master in a girl's school in Holloway, and there he's been ever since, growing older and older, and feebler and feebler, and blinder and deafer, and generally more gaga, until finally the school has given him the sack. He had about ten pounds in the world when I found him. He lives in a kind of black hole in a basement full of beetles¹². When his ten pounds are spent, I suppose he'll just quietly die there."

 

Badgery held up a white hand. "No more, no more. I find literature quite depressing enough. I insist that life at least shall be a little gayer. Did you tell him I wanted him to paint my room?"

 

"But he can't paint. He's too blind and palsied."

 

"Can't paint?" Badgery exclaimed in horror. "Then what's the good of the old creature?"

 

"Well, if you put it like that...." Spode began.

 

"I shall never have my frescoes. Ring the bell, will you?"

 

Spode rang.

 

"What right has Tillotson to go on existing if he can't paint?" went on Lord Badgery petulantly¹³. "After all, that was his only justification¹⁴ for occupying a place in the sun."

 

"He doesn't have much sun in his basement."

 

The footman appeared at the door.

 

"Get someone to put all these things back in their places," Lord Badgery commanded, indicating with a wave of the hand the ravaged¹⁵ cases, the confusion of glass and china with which he had littered the floor, the pictures unhooked. "We'll go to the library, Spode; it's more comfortable there."

 

He led the way through the long gallery and down the stairs.

 

"I'm sorry old Tillotson has been such a disappointment," said Spode sympathetically.

 

"Let us talk about something else; he ceases to interest me.

 

"But don't you think we ought to do something about him? He's only got ten pounds between him and the workhouse. And if you'd seen the black-beetles in his basement!"

 

"Enough enough. I'll do everything you think fitting."

 

"I thought we might get up a subscription¹⁶ amongst lovers of the arts."

 

"There aren't any," said Badgery.

 

"No; but there are plenty of people who will subscribe¹⁷ out of snobbism¹⁸."

 

"Not unless you give them something for their money."

 

"That's true. I hadn't thought of that." Spode was silent for a moment. "We might have a dinner in his honour. The Great Tillotson Banquet. Doyen of the British Art. A Link with the Past. Can't you see it in the papers? I'd make a stunt¹⁹ of it in the World's Review. That ought to bring in the snobs²⁰."

 

"And we'll invite a lot of artists and critics—all the ones who can't stand one another. It will be fun to see them squabbling." Badgery laughed. Then his face darkened once again. "Still," he added, "it'll be a very poor second best to my frescoes. You'll stay to dinner, of course."

 

"Well, since you suggest it. Thanks very much."

1 somnolence   

n.想睡，梦幻；欲寐；嗜睡；嗜眠

参考例句：

• At length he managed to get him into a condition of somnolence. 他终于促使他进入昏昏欲睡的状态。 来自辞典例句
• A lazy somnolence descended on the crowd. 一阵沉沉欲睡的懒意降落在人群里面。 来自辞典例句

2 surfeit   

v.使饮食过度；n.(食物)过量，过度

参考例句：

• The voters are pretty sick of such a surfeit of primary sloganeering.选民们对于初选时没完没了地空喊口号的现象感到发腻了。
• A surfeit of food makes one sick.饮食过量使人生病。

3 contemplate   

vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视

参考例句：

• The possibility of war is too horrifying to contemplate.战争的可能性太可怕了，真不堪细想。
• The consequences would be too ghastly to contemplate.后果不堪设想。

4 frescoes   

n.壁画( fresco的名词复数 )；温壁画技法，湿壁画

参考例句：

• The Dunhuang frescoes are gems of ancient Chinese art. 敦煌壁画是我国古代艺术中的瑰宝。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The frescoes in these churches are magnificent. 这些教堂里的壁画富丽堂皇。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 agile   

adj.敏捷的，灵活的

参考例句：

• She is such an agile dancer!她跳起舞来是那么灵巧！
• An acrobat has to be agile.杂技演员必须身手敏捷。

6 butt   

n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶

参考例句：

• The water butt catches the overflow from this pipe.大水桶盛接管子里流出的东西。
• He was the butt of their jokes.他是他们的笑柄。

7 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

8 genially   

adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地

参考例句：

• The white church peeps out genially from behind the huts scattered on the river bank. 一座白色教堂从散布在岸上的那些小木房后面殷勤地探出头来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• "Well, It'seems strange to see you way up here,'said Mr. Kenny genially. “咳，真没想到会在这么远的地方见到你，"肯尼先生亲切地说。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

9 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。

10 rudiments   

n.基础知识，入门

参考例句：

• He has just learned the rudiments of Chinese. 他学汉语刚刚入门。
• You do not seem to know the first rudiments of agriculture. 你似乎连农业上的一点最起码的常识也没有。

11 dealers   

n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者

参考例句：

• There was fast bidding between private collectors and dealers. 私人收藏家和交易商急速竞相喊价。
• The police were corrupt and were operating in collusion with the drug dealers. 警察腐败，与那伙毒品贩子内外勾结。

12 beetles   

n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Beetles bury pellets of dung and lay their eggs within them. 甲壳虫把粪粒埋起来，然后在里面产卵。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This kind of beetles have hard shell. 这类甲虫有坚硬的外壳。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

13 petulantly   

参考例句：

• \"No; nor will she miss now,\" cries The Vengeance, petulantly. “不会的，现在也不会错过，”复仇女神气冲冲地说。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

14 justification   

n.正当的理由；辩解的理由

参考例句：

• There's no justification for dividing the company into smaller units. 没有理由把公司划分成小单位。
• In the young there is a justification for this feeling. 在年轻人中有这种感觉是有理由的。

15 ravaged   

毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫

参考例句：

• a country ravaged by civil war 遭受内战重创的国家
• The whole area was ravaged by forest fires. 森林火灾使整个地区荒废了。

16 subscription   

n.预订，预订费，亲笔签名，调配法，下标（处方）

参考例句：

• We paid a subscription of 5 pounds yearly.我们按年度缴纳5英镑的订阅费。
• Subscription selling bloomed splendidly.订阅销售量激增。

17 subscribe   

vi.(to)订阅，订购；同意；vt.捐助，赞助

参考例句：

• I heartily subscribe to that sentiment.我十分赞同那个观点。
• The magazine is trying to get more readers to subscribe.该杂志正大力发展新订户。

18 snobbism   

势利

参考例句：

19 stunt   

n.惊人表演，绝技，特技；vt.阻碍...发育，妨碍...生长

参考例句：

• Lack of the right food may stunt growth.缺乏适当的食物会阻碍发育。
• Right up there is where the big stunt is taking place.那边将会有惊人的表演。

20 snobs   

（谄上傲下的）势利小人( snob的名词复数 )； 自高自大者，自命不凡者

参考例句：

• She dislikes snobs intensely. 她极其厌恶势利小人。
• Most of the people who worshipped her, who read every tidbit about her in the gossip press and hung up pictures of her in their rooms, were not social snobs. 崇敬她大多数的人不会放过每一篇报导她的八卦新闻，甚至在他们的房间中悬挂黛妃的画像，这些人并非都是傲慢成性。