Handicraft Author:Arthur Carey Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: VOL. IV JUNE 19ll NO. J A MERRY QUEST MADELINE YALE WYNNE SOME years ago, in London, I met this con- vival gentleman who holds high in his right hand a ... more »glass of wine; his left hand, in stylish lightness, rests upon his hip. I was completely captivated by his red coat and by his green-lined hat beneath which show his two tufts of yellow hair. I noted with appreciation the full-skirted coat and the white-clad legs spread apart in masterful width; the low shoes were firmly planted on the greensward. His pose was rakish, while his habit of bracing his knees together gave a fine sweep from the calf of the leg downward. When I first caught sight of him I was on the outside of the window and he on the inside. I marked him for my own, and thus he became the lure that led me into the dim delight of an old Wardour Street antiquity shop—that spendthrift's delight— that den of iniquitous, sliding prices. My gay gentleman had retained his youthful mein for more than a hundred years; he was enamelled on a bubbly, greenish bottle, a Black P'orest bottle blown into being presumably in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The narrow neck of the bottle was fitted with a metal rim and the cork had an ornamental top with a ring in it. Walking around the gallant gentleman I found engraved on the reverse side a pleasing sentiment done in German script to the effect that he pledged his Schatz in the ruby wine. I entered into amiable chaffering with the host of this den of thieves to the end that the convivial gentleman accompanied me as I went out of the door. One bottle inevitably leads to another and it was in Salisbury that I next met my fate. This time it was an irridescent, green, bubbly, square lop-cornered bottle that looked down upon me from a dusty shelf; on the flat...« less