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Toys of Peace-Part19_H.H.Munro(Saki)(1870-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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and crowd the market-place; men would note a promisingheifer or a



well-proportioned steer, and say: "Ah, that one comes of good old

Clover Fairy's stock." All that time the picture would be hanging,



lifeless and unchanging, beneath its dust and varnish, a chattel

that ceased to mean anything if you chose to turn it with its back



to the wall. These thoughts chased themselves angrily through Tom

Yorkfield's mind, but he could not put them into words. When he



gave tongue to his feelings he put matters bluntly and harshly.

"Some soft-witted fools may like to throw away three hundred pounds



on a bit of paintwork; can't say as I envy them their taste. I'd

rather have the real thing than a picture of it."



He nodded towards the young bull, that was alternately staring at

them with nose held high and lowering its horns with a half-playful,



half-impatient shake of the head.

Laurence laughed a laugh of irritating, indulgent amusement.



"I don't think the purchaser of my bit of paintwork, as you call it,

need worry about having thrown his money away. As I get to be



better known and recognised my pictures will go up in value. That

particular one will probably fetch four hundred in a sale-room five



or six years hence; pictures aren't a bad investment if you know

enough to pick out the work of the right men. Now you can't say



your precious bull is going to get more valuable the longer you keep

him; he'll have his little day, and then, if you go on keeping him,



he'll come down at last to a few shillingsworth of hoofs and hide,

just at a time, perhaps, when my bull is being bought for a big sum



for some important picture gallery."

It was too much. The united force of truth and slander and insult



put over heavy a strain on Tom Yorkfield's powers of restraint. In

his right hand he held a useful oak cudgel, with his left he made a



grab at the loose collar of Laurence's canary-coloured silk shirt.

Laurence was not a fighting man; the fear of physicalviolence threw



him off his balance as completely as overmastering indignation had

thrown Tom off his, and thus it came to pass that Clover Fairy was



regaled with the unprecedented sight of a human being scudding and

squawking across the enclosure, like the hen that would persist in



trying to establish a nesting-place in the manger. In another

crowded happy moment the bull was trying to jerk Laurence over his



left shoulder, to prod him in the ribs while still in the air, and

to kneel on him when he reached the ground. It was only the



vigorousintervention of Tom that induced him to relinquish the last

item of his programme.



Tom devotedly and ungrudgingly nursed his half brother to a complete

recovery from his injuries, which consisted of nothing more serious



than a dislocated shoulder, a broken rib or two, and a little

nervous prostration. After all, there was no further occasion for



rancour in the young farmer's mind; Laurence's bull might sell for

three hundred, or for six hundred, and be admired by thousands in



some big picture gallery, but it would never toss a man over one

shoulder and catch him a jab in the ribs before he had fallen on the



other side. That was Clover Fairy's noteworthy achievement, which

could never be taken away from him.



Laurence continues to be popular as an animal artist, but his

subjects are always kittens or fawns or lambkins--never bulls.



MORLVERA

The Olympic Toy Emporium occupied a conspicuous frontage in an



important West End street. It was happily named Toy Emporium,

because one would never have dreamed of according it the familiar



and yet pulse-quickening name of toyshop. There was an air of cold

splendour and elaboratefailure about the wares that were set out in



its ample windows; they were the sort of toys that a tired shop-

assistant displays and explains at Christmas time to exclamatory



parents and bored, silent children. The animal toys looked more

like natural history models than the comfortable, sympathetic



companions that one would wish, at a certain age, to take to bed

with one, and to smuggle into the bath-room. The mechanical toys



incessantly did things that no one could want a toy to do more than

a half a dozen times in its life-time; it was a merciful reflection



that in any right-minded nursery the lifetime would certainly be

short.






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