whether I love or despise you most. If a little of the whirr of
our great grandam's spinning wheel would only get into your brain
the world might hear from you. You are a man of unbounded stomach
and unbounded heart, and so you have won all there is of me except
my head, and that disapproves of you."

"A fig for the world! what good will it do me or it to have it hear
from me? you ambitious fellows are already making such a din that
the poor old world is half ready for Bedlam; and would go stark mad
were it not for us quiet, easy-going people, who have time for a
good dinner and a snack between meals. You've got a genius that's
like a windmill in a trade wind, always in motion; you are worth
more money than I shall ever have, but you are the greatest drudge
in the studio building, and work as many hours as a house-painter."

"When your brain once gets in motion, Ik, fiction will be its natural
product. You must admit that I have not painted many pictures."

"That is one of the things I complain of; I, your bosom friend and
familiar, your, I might add, guardian angel--I, who have so often
saved your life by quenching the flame of your consuming genius
with a hearty dinner, have been able to obtain one picture only
from you, and as one might draw a tooth. Your pictures are like
old maid's children--they must be so perfect that they can't exist
at all. But come, the ten minutes are up. Here's the programme
for the evening--a drive in the Park and a little dinner at a cool
restaurant near Thomas's Garden, and then the concert. That prince
of musical caterers has made a fine selection for to-night, and,
with the cigar stand on one side of us and the orchestra on the
other, we are certain to kill a couple of hours that will die like