This seemed good sense; but others groped farther for motive. They did not see where Frampton’s profit lay. What was he getting or hoping to get out of it? Why was he doing it? He must, they argued, be doing it for something. They themselves did things with purposes, therefore he must be doing it for the hope of benefit. What benefit? “No doubt,” they argued, “what he’s up to is a seat in Parliament here. He comes down here, and does up
It wasn’t in the least what he was up to. He had acted from the first with great singleness of purpose, to help Faringdon, and to put two fine works in a fine setting; but when the member of the Council suggested the mean motive, it was received. It explained everything to them. If they had not been indignant, they would have judged more kindly, but one or two correspondents in the London papers had spoken of them as wiseacres, as yokels, and as the local Dogberrys. They were angry now. It is possible that they might be made to look ungracious, in refusing what they had accepted, but they had been made to look absurd, in accepting what had been refused, and their bloods were up. They wrote a letter to Frampton:
This was signed by the Chairman and sent off to Frampton, who received it the next day, when he arrived at
Soon after his reading of the letter a representative of the London Press arrived, asking for an interview. He saw the man and told him that Stubbington had refused the two bronzes; that he had been under no obligation to tell the Town Council anything of their past. Anyone in the least instructed or interested in the arts, or in civic government, ought to have known of their rejection by Snipton, which was a national disgrace. As to the rejection by Stubbington, that was not so much to be wondered at. Snipton did at least belong to the twentieth century. Snipton did at least have an unemployment problem and a model town refuse plant. Stubbington belonged to the century before the last in all things except the corrupt civic government which had given it its Guild Hall. You would not find many legacies to posterity in the Stubbington of today. This rejection of works of art by ignorant, purblind city authorities was going on all over the country. The children of future generations would pay the price in ugly, artless, joyless, hideous dens called towns, and in the stunted life which must follow any rejection of the finer kinds of intelligence. He wished it to be known that he had offered a bronze of King Stubba, by Mr. Faringdon, to the Stubbington people, as well as these Female Griefs, but that the offer would now be withdrawn.
Having expressed himself with a good deal of point and shrewdness to the delighted journalist, he sat down to write to the Town Council, to say that he had been surprised to receive their letter, but noted that the two bronzes were rejected, and asked that they would note that the offer of the bronze of King Stubba was finally and definitely withdrawn.