dwelt. These old buildings in the Scottish baronial style of architecture interested him greatly.
Turning along London Street (why we took this roundabout route, I now forget) we struck down a narrow passage known as 'Shipka Pass,' where, in the window of a quack doctor's herbal dispensary, were exhibited a 'Wax Venus' anatomical model and illustrated literature of the Palais Royal type. There had recently been a good deal of satirical comment in the London press over the refusal of the Glasgow Town Council to accept for the Art Gallery a picture with a nude figure, the ground of their refusal being that the picture was 'indecent.' The unexpected display, therefore, of pornographical wares in a public thoroughfare in the very heart of the city rather surprised Morris. I explained to him, however, that it was one thing for our 'unco guid City Fathers,' as they were sarcastically called by their London critics, to refuse to accept and exhibit a picture which they thought objectionable, and another thing for them to suppress by prosecution a shopkeeper for exhibiting and selling what he was pleased to describe as 'scientific works.'
I did not, however, gather from Morris that he was wholly on the side of the London press. 'There are,' he said, 'some painters who are rum enough coves, and some paintings that are only fit for monkey-houses.' Meanwhile a big gaunt labourer, who had been gaping wonder-struck at the Wax Venus, now kept close by us, eyeing Morris with stupid curiosity. I suggested to Morris that the fellow evidently regarded him as the 'Famous Professor and Specialist,' referred to in the herbalist's window. Much amused, Morris began telling me a story about a country bumpkin returning home drunk from a fair. While telling the story we emerged from the 'Pass' and were crossing the Gallowgate, a broad thoroughfare, just as he had reached the climax of the tale. In the zest of his recital he halted in the middle of the street, and oblivious to the astonishment of the passers-by and to my discomfiture, he dramatically imitated the drunken speech and gestures of the hero of the
