He came back with it across
the room and held it out in front of me. And compared to the
surprise of that display, all the previous surprises of this awful
day shrank suddenly.
"It was a portrait of myself. That such a picture should be in the
hands of these scoundrels might in any case have caused a mild
surprise; but no more. It was no mild surprise that I felt. The
likeness was an extremely good one, worked up with all the
accessories of the conventional photographic studio. I was leaning
my head on my hand and was relieved against a painted landscape of
woodland. It was obvious that it was no snapshot; it was clear that
I had sat for this photograph. And the truth was that I had never
sat for such a photograph. It was a photograph that I had never had
taken.
"I stared at it again and again. It seemed to me to be touched up a
good deal; it was glazed as well as framed, and the glass blurred
some of the details. But there unmistakably was my face, my eyes,
my nose and mouth, my head and hand, posed for a professional
photographer. And I had never posed so for any photographer.
"`Be'old the bloomin' miracle,' said the man with the revolver,
with ill-timed facetiousness. `Parson, prepare to meet your God.'
And with this he slid the glass out of the frame.
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