The "Christian Martyr" was what is called an engraving, and a very tasteful thing, too, besides being the largest picture we had. It represented a young woman, drowned, floating down a river by night, with her hands tied, and a very pleasing expression on her face. With the frame (maple, and a gilt border inside) it came to three-and-six. I bought it in the Edgware Road on my own responsibility, and carried it home. I thought Eliza would like it, and she did.
"Poor thing!" she said. "You can see she must have been a lady, too. But frightfully dusty!"
"You can't get everything for three-and-six. If you'd been under the counter in a dirty little----"
"Well, all right! I wasn't complaining; but I like things clean." And she took the "Christian Martyr" into the kitchen.
"Where did you mean to put it?" asked Eliza.
"The only good place would be between 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' and 'The Stag at Bay.'"
"What! In the dining-room?"
"Certainly."
"Well, I shouldn't," said Eliza. "It's a sacred subject, and we use the drawing-room on Sundays. That's the place."
"I think I can trust my own taste," I said. I got a brass-headed nail and a hammer, and began. Eliza said afterward that she had known the chair would break before ever I stood on it.
"Then you might have mentioned it," I said, coldly. "However, you shall learn that when I have made up my mind to do a thing, I do it." I rang the bell, and told the girl to fetch the steps.
I hung the "Christian Martyr," and was very pleased with the effect. The whole room looked brighter and more cheerful. I asked Eliza what she thought, and she answered, as I expected, that the picture ought to have been in the drawing-room.
"Eliza," I said, "there is one little fault which you should try to correct. It is pigheadedness."
At breakfast next morning the picture was all crooked. I put it straight. Then the girl brought in the bacon, rubbed against the picture, and put it crooked again. I put it straight again, and sat down. The girl, in passing out, put it crooked once more.
"Really," I said to Eliza, "this is a little too much!"
"Then put some of it back."
"I was not referring to what I have on my plate, but to that girl's conduct. I don't buy 'Christian Martyrs' for her to treat them in that way, and I think you should speak about it."
"She can't get past without rubbing against it. You've put it so low. I said it would be better in the drawing-room."
As usual, I kept my temper.
"Eliza," I said, "have you already forgotten what I told you last night? We all of us--even the best of us--have our faults, but surely----"
"While you're talking you're missing your train," she said.
On my return from the city I went into the dining-room and found the picture gone. Eliza was sitting there as calmly as if nothing had happened.
"Where is the 'Christian Martyr'?" I asked.
"On the sofa in the drawing-room. You said yourself that it was only in the way in here. I thought you might like to hang it there."
"I am not angry," I said, "but I am pained." Then I fetched the "Christian Martyr" and put it in its old place.
"You are a funny man," said Eliza; "I never know what you want."
As we were going up to bed that night we heard a loud bang in the dining-room. The "Christian Martyr" was lying on the floor with the glass broken. It had also smashed a Japanese teapot.
"I wish you'd never bought any 'Christian Martyr,'" said Eliza. "If we'd had a mad bull in the place it couldn't have been worse. I'm sure I'm not going to buy a new glass for it."
So next day I bought a new glass myself in the city, and brought it back with me. But apparently Eliza had changed her mind, for a new glass had already been fitted in, and it was hanging in the dining-room, just where it had been before.
As a reward to Eliza I took it down and put it up in the drawing-room. She smiled in a curious sort of way that I did not quite like. But I thought it best to say nothing more about it.
