To everybody's amazement Edward soon began to make quite good progress
in his painting. Yes, his pictures were not at all unpleasant little
things. He sent one of them to the Academy. It was accepted. It was, as
I live, sold for ten pounds. Edward was an artist.
Soon he was making between thirty and forty pounds a year. Then he was
making over a hundred. Then two hundred. Then the Mexican brewery
failed, General Malefico having burned it to the ground for a lark.
This happened in the spring of 1914 when Edward was sixty-one and Miss
Crewe was ninety-three. Edward, after paying her money to Miss Crewe,
might flatter himself on the possibility of having some fifty pounds a
year for himself, that is to say, if his picture sales did not decline.
A single man can, however, get along, more or less, on fifty pounds
more or less.
Then the Great War broke out.
It has been said that in the autumn of 1914 the Old Men came into their
kingdom. As the fields of Britain were gradually stripped bare of their
valid toilers, the Fathers of each village assumed, at good wages, the
burden of agriculture.
Pages:
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158