ess; they know of their playing, one and the other, as much as
anybody can learn.

_I._--You are hard to please, and I see you can forgive nothing
short of the sublimities.

_He._--True, in chess, women, poetry, eloquence, music, and all
such fiddle-faddle. What is the use of mediocrity in these matters?

_I._--Little enough, I agree. But the thing is that there must be a
great number of men at work, for us to make sure of the man of
genius: he is one out of a multitude. But let that pass. 'Tis an
age since I have seen you. Though I do not often think about you
when you are out of sight, yet it is always a pleasure to me to
meet you. What have you been about?

_He._--What you, I, and everybody else are about--some good, some
bad, and nothing at all. Then, I have been hungry, and I have eaten
when opportunity offered; after eating, I have been thirsty, and
now and then have had something to drink. Besides that, my beard
grew, and as it grew I had it shaved.

_I._--There you were wrong; it is the only thing wanting to make a
sage of you.

_He._--Ay, ay; I have a wide and furrowed brow, a glowing eye, a
firm nose, broad cheeks, a black and bushy eyebrow, a clean cut
mouth, a square jaw. Cover this enormous chin with amplitude of
beard, and I warrant you it would look vastly well in marble or in
bronze.

_I._--By the side of a Caesar, a Marcus Aurelius, a Socrates.

_He._--Nay, I should be better between Diogenes, Lais, and Phryne.
I am brazenfaced as the one, and I am happy to pay a visit to the
others.

_I._--Are you always well?

_He._--Yes, commonly; but I am no great wonders to-day.

_I._--Why, you have a paunch like Silenus, and a face like....

_He._--A face you might take for I don't know what. The ill humour
that dries up my dear master seems to fatten his dear pupil.

_I._--And this dear master, do you ever see him now?

_He._--Yes, passing along the street.

_I._--Does he do nothing for you?

_He._--If he has done anything for anybody, it is without knowing
it. He is a philosopher after his fashion. He thinks of nobody but
himself. His wife and his daughter may die as soon as they please;
provided the church bells that toll for them continue to sound the
_twelfth_ and the _seventeenth_, all will be