cleverer than any one else, except Mrs. Lintot, to whom he yielded the
palm; and then he would cheer up and become funny again.

In fact his self-satisfaction was quite extraordinary; and what is more
extraordinary still, it was not a bit offensive--at least, to me;
perhaps because he was such a tiny little man; or because much of this
vanity of his seemed to have no very solid foundation, for it was not of
the gifts I most admired in him that he was vainest; or because it came
out most when he was most tipsy, and genial tipsiness redeems so much;
or else because he was most vain about things I should never have been
vain about myself; and the most unpardonable vanity in others is that
which is secretly our own, whether we are conscious of it or not.

[Illustration: "I FELT GRATEFUL TO ADORATION."]

And then he was the first funny man I had ever met. What a gift it is!
He was always funny when he tried to be, whether one laughed with him or
at him, and I loved him for it. Nothing on earth is more pathetically
pitiable than the funny man when he still tries and succeeds no longer.

The moment Lintot's vein was exhausted, he had the sense to leave off
and begin to cry, which was still funny; and then I would jump out of
his clothes and into his bed and be asleep in a second, with the tears
still trickling down his little nose--and even that was funny!

But next morning he was stern and alert and indefatiguable, as though
gin and poetry and conjugal love had never been, and fun were a
capital crime.

Uncle Ibbetson thought highly of him as an architect, but not otherwise;