ded to do. And he convinced his uncle-in-law that young
sculptors were tremendously handicapped in an expensive and difficult
profession by poverty or at least narrowness of means. He convinced his
uncle-in-law that the best manner of succeeding was to begin at the top,
to try for only the highest things, to sell nothing cheaply, to be
haughty with dealers and connoisseurs, and to cut a figure in the very
centre of the art-world of London. George was a good talker, and all
that he said was perfectly true. And his uncle was dazzled by the
immediate prospect of new fame for the ancient family of Peel. And in
the end old Samuel promised to give George and Mary five hundred a year,
so that George, as a sculptor, might begin at the top and "succeed like
success." And George went off with his bride to London, whence he had
come. And the old man thought he had done a very noble and a very
wonderful thing, which, indeed, he had.

This had occurred when George was twenty-five.

Matters fell out rather as George had predicted. The youth almost at
once obtained a commission for three hundred pounds' worth of symbolic
statues for the front of the central offices of the Order of Rechabites,
which particularly pleased his uncle, because Samuel Peel was a strong
temperance man. And George got one or two other commissions.

Being extravagant was to George Peel the same thing as "putting all the
profits into the business" is to a manufacturer. He was extravagant and
ostentatious on principle, and by far-sighted policy--or, at least, he
thought that he was.

And thus the world's rumours multiplied his success, and many persons
said and believed that he was making quite two thousand a year, and
would be an A.R.A. before he was grey-haired. But George always related
the true facts to his uncle-in-law; he even made them out to be much
less satisfactory than they really were. His favourite phrase in letters
to his uncle was that he was "building," "building"--not houses, but his
future reputation and success.

Then commissions fell off or grew intermittent, or were refused as being
unworthy of George's dignity. And then young Georgie arrived, with his
insatiable appetites and his vociferous need of doctors, nurses,
perambulators, nurseries, and lacy garments. And all the time young
George's father kept his head high and continued to be extravagant by
far-sighted policy. And the five hundred a year kept coming in regularly
by quarterly i