The art of the photographer usually arouses in me all that is splenetic, and I had not submitted myself to him for years before Dora made such a preposterous point of it--years in which, as Isadly explained to her, I might have submitted to the ordeal with much more 'pleasing' results.She had often insisted before, but Icould never see that she made out a particularly good case for the operation until one afternoon when she showed me the bold counterfeit presentment of an Assistant Adjutant-General or some such person, much flattered as to features but singularly faithful in its reproduction of the straps and buttons attached.To my post also there belongs a uniform and a cocked hat sufficiently dramatic, but persons who serve the State primarily with the intelligence are supposed to have a mind above buttons; and when I decided that my photograph should compete with the Assistant Adjutant-General's, Igave him every sartorial advantage.I gathered that the offer, cabinet size, of this gentleman had been a spontaneous one; that certainly could not be said of mine.Most unwillingly I turned one morning into Kauffer's; and I can not now imagine why I did it, for emulation of the Assistant Adjutant-General was really not motive enough, unless it was with an instinct prepared to stumble upon matter germane in an absurd degree to this little history.
I had the honour to be subjected to the searching analysis of Mr.
Kauffer himself.It was he who placed the chair and arranged the screw, he who fixed the angle of my chin and gently disposed my fingers on my knee.He gave me, I remember, a recent portrait of the Viceroy to fix my eye upon, doubtless with the purpose of inspiring my countenance with the devotion which would sit suitably upon one of His Excellency's slaves, and when it was all over he conducted me into another apartment in order that I might see the very latest viceregal group--a domestic one, including the Staff.
The walls of the room contained what is usually there, the enlarged photograph, the coloured photograph, the amateur theatrical group, the group of His Excellency's Executive Council, the native dignitary with a diamond-tipped aigrette in the front of his turban.
The copy in oils of some old Italian landscape, very black and yellow, also held its invariable place, and above it, very near the ceiling, a line of canvases which, had I not been led past them to inspect our ruler and his family, who sat transfixed on an easel in a resplendent frame, would probably have escaped my attention.Idid proper homage to the easel, and then turned to those pictures.
It was plain enough who had painted them.Armour's broad brush stood out all over them.They were mostly Indian sporting subjects, the incident a trifle elliptical, the drawing unequal, but the verve and feeling unmistakeable, and colour to send a quiver of glorious acquiescence through you like a pang.What astonished me was the number of them; there must have been at least a dozen, all the same size and shape, all hanging in a line of dazzling repetition.Here then was the explanation of Armour's seeming curious lack of output, and plain denial of the supposition that he spent the whole of his time in doing the little wooden 'pochade' things whose sweetness and delicacy had so feasted our eyes elsewhere.It was part, no doubt, of his absolutely uncommercial nature--we had experienced together passages of the keenest embarrassment over my purchase of some of his studies--that he had not mentioned these more serious things exposed at Kauffer's; one had the feeling of coming unexpectedly on treasure left upon the wayside and forgotten.
'Hullo!' I said, at a standstill, 'I see you've got some of Mr.
Armour's work there.'
Mr.Kauffer, with his hands behind him, made the sound which has its counterpart in a shrug.'Yass,' he said, 'I haf some of Mr.
Armour's work there.This one, that one, all those remaining pictures--they are all the work of Mr.Armour.'
'I didn't know that any of his things were to be seen outside his studio,' I observed.
'So? They are to be seen here.There is no objection.'
'Why should there be any objection?' I demanded, slightly nettled.
'People must see them before they buy them.'
'Buy them!' Kauffer's tone was distinctly exasperated.'Who will buy these pictures? Nobody.They are all, every one of them to REfuse.'
'If you know Mr.Armour well enough,' I said, 'you should advise him to exhibit some of his local studies and sketches here.They might sell better.'
My words seemed unfortunately chosen.Mr.Kauffer turned an honest angry red.
'Do I not know Mr.Armour well enough--und better!' he exclaimed.
'What this man wass doing when I in Paris find him oudt? Shtarving, mein Gott! I see his work.I see he paint a very goot horse, very goot animal subject.I bring him oudt on contract, five hundred rupees the monnth to paint for me, for my firm.Sir, it is now nine monnth.I am yoost four tousand five hundred rupees out of my pocket by this gentleman!'
