Rene Magritte The Blank Check painting

Rene Magritte The Blank Check paintingSir Lawrence Alma-Tadema In the Tepidarium paintingMarc Chagall I and the Village painting
Now, you mustn’t talk like that to Mr. Vaughan. Come and have a peppermint, dear.” And she looked at me as though to say, “What did I tell you?”
Quite suddenly I decided to take on the job after all.
An hour later we were in the train. I had the Duke’s cheque for £150 preliminary expenses in my pocket; the boy’s preposterous little wicker box was in the rack over his head.
“I say,” he said, “what am I to call you?”
“Well, most of my friends call me Ernest.”
“May I really do that?”
“Yes, of course. What shall I call you?”
He looked doubtful. “Grandfather and the aunts call me Stayle; everyone else calls me ‘my Lord’ when they are about and ‘Bats’ when we are alone. It’s short for ‘Bats in the Belfry’, you know.”
“But haven’t you got a Christian name?”
He had to think before he answered. “Yes—George Theodore Verney.”
“Well, I’m going to call you George.”
“Will you really? I say, have you been to London a lot?”
“Yes, I live there usually.”