But Mr. Hammer, ruminating in his mind all the accidents and changes and
adventures of human life, its complexity, its unfulfilled desires, its
fading but not quite perishable ideals, well knowing how men are made
happy and how unhappy, ventured on no reply. Two great tears gathered in
his eyes, and he would have shed them, perhaps to be profusely followed by
more--he was nearly breaking down--when he looked up and saw on the wall
opposite him seven pastiches which he had made in the years gone by. There
was a Titian and a George Morland, a Chardin, two cows after Cooper, and
an impressionist picture after some Frenchman whose name he had forgotten.
"You like pictures?" he said to the Australian, the tears still standing
in his eyes.
"I do!" said the Australian with conviction.
"Will you let me give you these?" said Mr. Hammer.
The Australian protested that such things could not be allowed, but he was
a simple man, and at last he consented, for he was immensely pleased.
"It is an ungracious thing to make conditions," said Mr. Hammer, "and I
won't make any, only I should be pleased if, in your island home...."
"I don't live on an island," said the Australian. Mr. Hammer remembered
the map of Australia, with the water all round it, but he was too polite
to argue.
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