'Probably,' said I, surveying him.

'Why, it stands to reason,' said the Model. 'Work another week at
my legs, and it'll be the same thing. You'll make 'em out as
knotty and as knobby, at last, as if they was the trunks of two old
trees. Then, take and stick my legs and throat on to another man's
body, and you'll make a reg'lar monster. And that's the way the
public gets their reg'lar monsters, every first Monday in May, when
the Royal Academy Exhibition opens.'

'You are a critic,' said I, with an air of deference.

'I'm in an uncommon ill humour, if that's it,' rejoined the Model,
with great indignation. 'As if it warn't bad enough for a bob a-
hour, for a man to be mixing himself up with that there jolly old
furniter that one 'ud think the public know'd the wery nails in by
this time - or to be putting on greasy old 'ats and cloaks, and
playing tambourines in the Bay o' Naples, with Wesuvius a smokin'
according to pattern in the background, and the wines a bearing
wonderful in the middle distance - or to be unpolitely kicking up
his legs among a lot o' gals, with no reason whatever in his mind
but to show 'em - as if this warn't bad enough, I'm to go and be
thrown out of employment too!'

'Surely no!' said I.

'Surely yes,' said the indignant Model. 'BUT I'LL GROW ONE.'

The gloomy and threatening manner in which he muttered the last
words, can never be effaced from my remembrance. My blood ran