of a book.

"If," he urged, "I went into a bookseller's and said simply, 'Have
you got?' or, 'Have you a copy of?' how would they know what I
wanted?"

"Oh, of course I should have my name on the cover," Soames
answered earnestly. "And I rather want," he added, looking hard at
Rothenstein, "to have a drawing of myself as frontispiece." Rothenstein
admitted that this was a capital idea, and mentioned that he was going
into the country and would be there for some time. He then looked at his
watch, exclaimed at the hour, paid the waiter, and went away with me to
dinner. Soames remained at his post of fidelity to the glaucous witch.

"Why were you so determined not to draw him?" I asked.

"Draw him? Him? How can one draw a man who doesn't exist?"

"He is dim," I admitted. But my mot juste fell flat.
Rothenstein repeated that Soames was non-existent.

Still, Soames had written a book. I asked if Rothenstein had read
"Negations." He said he had looked into it, "but," he added crisply, "I
don't profess to know anything about writing." A reservation very
characteristic of the period! Painters would not then allow that any one
outside their own order had a right to any opinion about painting. This
law (graven on the tablets brought down by Whistler from the summit
of Fuji-yama) imposed certain limitations. If other arts than painting
were not utterly unintelligible to all but the men who practiced
them, the law tottered--the Monroe Doctrine, as it were, did not hold