No more should I," observed Dick, puffing out a volume of smoke. "I
should have been 'marry-ed to a mermy-ed' by this time, if you had
shown a proper devotion to your art, and the customary indifference to
your friend."

"O, that was nothing!" said the painter, blushing. "Any other fellow
could have pulled you out just as well. I say, Stanmore, how jolly it
was over there! Those were happy days. And yet I don't wish to have
them back again--do you?"

Dick sighed and held his peace. For him it seemed that the light heart
and joyous carelessness of that bright youthful time was gone, never
to come again.

"I have learned so much since then," continued Simon, putting a little
grey into his imp's muzzle, "and unlearned so much, too, which is better
still. Mannerism, Stanmore--mannerism is the great enemy of art. Now,
I'll explain what I mean in two words. In the first place, you observe
the light from that chink streaming down on my imp's back; well, in the
picture, you know--"

"Where _is_ the picture?" exclaimed Dick, whose cigar was finished,
and who had no scruples in thus unceremoniously interrupting a
professional lecture which previous experience told him might be
wearisome. "Let's see it. Let's see _all_ the pictures. Illustration's
better than argument, and I can't understand anything unless it's set
before me in bright colours, under my very nose."

Good-natured Simon desisted from his occupation at once, and began
lifting picture after picture, as they stood in layers against the
wall, to place them in a favourable light for the inspection of
his friend. Many and discursive were his criticisms on these, the
progressive results of eye, and hand, and brain, improving every
day. Here the drawing was faulty, there the tints were coarse. This
betrayed mannerism, that lacked power, and in a very ambitious
landscape, enriched with wood, water, and mountain, a patchy sky
spoiled the effect of the whole.

Nevertheless it seemed that he was himself not entirely dissatisfied
with his work, and whenever his friend ventured on the diffident
criticism of an amateur, Simon demonstrated at great length that each
fault, as he pointed it out, was in truth a singular merit and beauty
in the picture.

Presently, with a face of increased importance, he moved a large
oblong canvas from its hiding-place, to prop it artistically at such
an angle as showed the lights and shades of its finished portion to
the best advantage. The