The Model Millionaire

by Oscar Wilde


Unless one is wealthy, it's no use being charming. Romance is for the rich, not the unemployed. The poor should be practical and ordinary. It's better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating. These are the great truths of modern life which Hughie Erskine had never realised.

Poor Hughie! Intellectually, we must admit, he was not of much importance. He never said a brilliant or even a spiteful thing in his life. But then he was wonderfully good-looking, with his smart brown hair, his handsome profile and his grey eyes. He was as popular with men as he was with women and he had every gift except making money. His father had left him his sword and a history book in fifteen volumes. Hughie hung the first over his mirror, put the second on a shelf, and lived on two hundred pounds a year that an old aunt sent him. He had tried everything. He had gone on the Stock Exchange for six months; but what was a butterfly to do among bulls and bears? He had sold tea for a little longer, but had soon got tired of Darjeeling and English Breakfast Tea. In the end, he became nothing, a lovely, ineffectual young man with a perfect profile and no profession.

To make matters worse, he was in love. The girl he loved was Laura Merton, the daughter of a retired Colonel who had lost his temper and his appetite in India and had never found either of them again. Laura adored Hughie and he loved her. They were the handsomest couple in London and had not a penny between them. The Colonel was very fond of Hughie, but would not agree to their getting engaged.

"Come to me, my boy, when you have got ten thousand pounds of your own, and we will see about it," he used to say; and Hughie looked very miserable on those days, and had to go to Laura for sympathy.

One morning, as he was on his way to the Mertons' house, he dropped in to see a great friend of his, Alan Trevor. Trevor was a painter, which is very usual. But he was also an artist and artists are rather rare. Personally he was a strange-looking man, with an untidy red beard. However, when he picked up his brush, he was a real master and his pictures were in demand.

He had been attracted by Hughie at first, it must be said, entirely because of his personal charm. "The only people a painter should know," he used to say, "are people who are naive and beautiful, people who are an artistic pleasure to look at and intellectually easy to talk to." However, after he got to know Hughie better, he liked him just as much for his generous, reckless character and allowed him to come to his studio whenever he wanted.

When Hughie came in, he found Trevor putting the finishing touches to a wonderful life-size picture of a beggar. The beggar himself was standing in a corner of the studio. He was a wizened old man, with a face like crumpled paper, and a miserable expression. Over his shoulders, there was a cheap brown coat, badly torn; his thick boots had been repaired too often, and in one hand he had a rough stick, while with the other he held out his old hat for charity.

"What an amazing model!" whispered Hughie, as he shook hands with his friend.

"An amazing model?" shouted Trevor at the top of his voice; "I should think so! You don’t see such beggars every day."

"Poor old man!" said Hughie, "How miserable he looks! But I suppose, to you painters, his face is his fortune?"

"Certainly," replied Trevor, "you don't want a beggar to look happy, do you?"

"How much does a model get an hour?" asked Hughie.

"A shilling an hour."

"And how much do you get for your picture, Alan?"

"Oh, for this I get two thousand pounds!"

"Well, I think the model should have a percentage," cried Hughie, laughing. "They work as hard as you do."

"Nonsense, nonsense! Why, look at the trouble of laying on the paint alone! It's all very well for you to talk, Hughie, but there are moments when Art is almost like manual labour. But you mustn't chatter; I'm very busy. Smoke a cigarette and keep quiet."

After some time the servant came in and told Trevor that the frame maker wanted to speak to him.

"Don't run away, Hughie," he said, as he went out, "I will be back in a moment."

The old beggar took advantage of Trevor's absence to rest for a moment. He looked so miserable that Hughie could not help being sorry for him and felt in his pockets to see what money he had. All he could find was a five-shilling coin and some pennies. "Poor old man," he thought to himself, "he wants it more than I do, but it means no taxis for a fortnight" and he walked across the studio and put the five shillings into the beggar's hand.

A faint smile moved across the old man’s withered lips. "Thank you, sir," he said, "thank you."

Then Trevor arrived and Hughie left, blushing a little at what he had done. He spent the day with Laura, was told off for his extravagance and had to walk home.

That night he walked into a club about eleven o'clock and found Trevor sitting by himself.

"Well, Alan, did you get the picture finished all right?" he said, as he lit his cigarette.

"Finished and framed, my boy!" answered Trevor; "and, by the way, you have made a friend. That old model you saw is quite devoted to you. I had to tell him all about you – who you are, where you live, what your income is, what prospects you have..."

"Alan," cried Hughie, "I shall probably find him waiting for me when I go home. But of course you're only joking. Poor old man! I wish I could do something for him. I think it is terrible that anyone should be so miserable. I have got lots of old clothes at home – do you think he would like any of them? His were falling to bits."

"But he looks wonderful in them," said Trevor. "What seems poverty to you is picturesque to me. However, I'll tell him about your offer."

"Alan," said Hughie seriously, "you painters are a heartless lot."

"An artist's heart is his head," replied Trevor; "and besides, our business is to realise the world as we see it, not to reform it. And now tell me how Laura is. The old model was quite interested in her."

"You don"t mean to say you talked to him about her?" said Hughie.

"Certainly I did. He knows all about the bad-tempered Colonel, the lovely Laura and the 10,000 pounds."

"You told that old beggar all my private business?" cried Hughie, looking very red and angry.

"My dear boy," said Trevor, smiling, "that old beggar, as you call him, is one of the richest men in Europe. He could buy all London tomorrow. He has a house in every capital, eats off gold plates and can prevent Russia going to war when he chooses."

"What on earth do you mean?" exclaimed Hughie.

"What I say," said Trevor. "The old man you saw today in the studio was Baron Hausberg. He's a great friend of mine, buys all my pictures and asked me a month ago to paint him as a beggar. And I must say he made a wonderful figure in his old clothes, or perhaps I should say in my old clothes; they’re an old suit I got in Spain."

"Baron Hausberg!" cried Hughie. "I gave him five shillings!" and he fell back into his armchair.

"Gave him five shillings!" shouted Trevor and he burst out laughing. "You'll never see it again."

"I think you might have told me, Alan," said Hughie sulkily, "and not let me make a fool of myself."

"To begin with, Hughie," said Trevor, "I never imagined that you gave money away in that reckless way. I can understand you kissing a pretty model, but giving five shillings to an ugly one – no! Besides, when you came in I didn't know whether Hausberg would like his name mentioned. You know how he was dressed."

"What an idiot he must think me!" said Hughie.

"Not at all. He was very happy after you left; he kept chuckling to himself. I couldn't make out why he was so interested to know all about you; but I see it all now. He'll invest your five shillings for you, Hughie, and have a wonderful story to tell people after dinner."

"I'm so unlucky,' Hughie complained. "Alan, you mustn't tell anyone."

"Nonsense! Don't run away! Have another cigarette and you can talk about Laura as much as you like."

However, Hughie wouldn't stop but walked home, feeling very unhappy and leaving Alan Trevor laughing.

The next morning, as he was at breakfast, the servant announced, "Mr. Gustave Naudin on behalf of Baron Hausberg."

"I suppose he has come for an apology," said Hughie to himself; and he told the servant to show the visitor in. An old gentleman came into the room and said, in a slight French accent, "Am I speaking to Mr. Erskine?"

Hughie agreed.

"I have come from Baron Hausberg," he continued. "The Baron..."

"Please offer him my apologies," said Hughie.

"The Baron," said the old gentleman with a smile, "has asked me to bring you this letter" and he held out an envelope.

On the outside was written, "A wedding present to Hugh Erskine and Laura Merton from an old beggar," and inside was a cheque for 10,000 pounds.

When they were married, the Baron made a speech at the wedding breakfast.

"Millionaire models," remarked Alan, "are unusual; but model millionaires are even less common!"