And below, the building was broad and
massive, with a frontage of pillars over great arched windows. Two
cranes stuck their arms out from the general mass, and the whole
enterprise was guarded in a hedge of hoardings. Through the narrow
doorway in the hoarding came the flare and the hissing of a Wells's
light. Priam Farll glanced timidly within. The interior was immense. In
a sort of court of honour a group of muscular, hairy males, silhouetted
against an illuminated latticework of scaffolding, were chipping and
paring at huge blocks of stone. It was a subject for a Rembrandt.
A fat untidy man meditatively approached the doorway. He had a roll of
tracing papers in his hand, and the end of a long, thick pencil in his
mouth. He was the man who interpreted the dreams of the architect to the
dreamy British artisan. Experience of life had made him somewhat
brusque.
"Look here," he said to Priam; "what the devil do you want?"
"What the devil do I want?" repeated Priam, who had not yet altogether
fallen away from his mood of universal defiance. "I only want to know
what the h-ll this building is."
The fat man was a little startled. He took his pencil from his mouth,
and spit.
"It's the new Picture Gallery, built under the will of that there Priam
Farll.
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