[Peg Woffington by Charles Reade]@TWC D-Link bookPeg Woffington CHAPTER XIII 5/99
"Those are our best, madam!" "Well, sir, I have got a bright idea." "You don't say so, ma'am!" "Don't be a brute, dear!" said the lady gravely. Triplet stared! "When I was in France, taking lessons of Dumesnil, one of the actors of the Theatre Francais had his portrait painted by a rising artist.
The others were to come and see it.
They determined, beforehand, to mortify the painter and the sitter, by abusing the work in good set terms.
But somehow this got wind, and the patients resolved to be the physicians. They put their heads together, and contrived that the living face should be in the canvas, surrounded by the accessories; these, of course, were painted.
Enter the actors, who played their little prearranged farce; and, when they had each given the picture a slap, the picture rose and laughed in their faces, and discomfited them! By the by, the painter did not stop there; he was not content with a short laugh, he laughed at them five hundred years!" "Good gracious, Mrs.Woffington!" "He painted a picture of the whole thing; and as his work is immortal, ours an April snow-flake, he has got tremendously the better of those rash little satirists.
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