"Let us in," cried Tom. "I bring you a patron, sleepy fool."
Then 'twas plain some one tumbled from his bed and shuffled forward to
the door, whose handle he had some difficulty in turning. But when he
got the door open, and caught sight of lace and velvet, plumed hats and
shining swords, he was not so drunk but that which the sight suggested
enlivened and awaked him. He uttered an exclamation, threw the door
wide, and stood making unsteady but humbly propitiatory bows.
"Your lordships' pardon," he said. "I was asleep and knew not that such
honour awaited me. Enter, your lordships; I pray you enter."
'Twas a little mean place with no furnishings but a broken bedstead, a
rickety chair, and an uncleanly old table on which were huddled
together a dry loaf, an empty bottle, and some poor daubs of pictures.
The painter himself was an elderly man with a blotched face, a bibulous
eye, and half unclothed, he having wrapped a dirty blanket about his
body to conceal decently his lack of nether garments.
"We come to look at your portrait of the Gloucestershire beauty," said
Tom.
"All want to look at it, my Lord," said the man, with a leer, half
servile, half cunning. "There came two young gentlemen of fashion
yesterday morning, and almost lost their wits at sight of it. Either
would have bought it, but both had had ill luck at basset for a week
and so could do no more than look, and go forth with their mouths
watering.
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