know better do not do,
or think."

"And who are those who know better?"

"Ah! my dear, you are asking me a riddle? Well, then--Society, men of
birth, men of recognised position, men above eccentricity, in a word, of
reputation."

Harz looked at him fixedly. "Men who haven't the courage of their own
ideas, not even the courage to smell of India-rubber; men who have no
desires, and so can spend all their time making themselves flat!"

Herr Paul drew out a red silk handkerchief and wiped his beard. "I
assure you, my dear," he said, "it is easier to be flat; it is more
respectable to be flat. Himmel! why not, then, be flat?"

"Like any common fellow?"

"Certes; like any common fellow--like me, par exemple!" Herr Paul waved
his hand. When he exercised unusual tact, he always made use of a French
expression.

Harz flushed. Herr Paul followed up his victory. "Come, come!" he said.
"Pass me my men of repute! que diable! we are not anarchists."

"Are you sure?" said Harz.

Herr Paul twisted his moustache. "I beg your pardon," he said slowly.
But at this moment the door was opened; a rumbling voice remarked:
"Morning, Paul. Who's your visitor?" Harz saw a tall, bulky figure in
the doorway.

"Come in,"' called out Herr Paul. "Let me present to you a new
acquaintance, an artist: Herr Harz--Mr. Nicholas Treffry. Psumm bumm!
All this introducing is dry work." And going to the sideboard he poured
out three glasses of a light, foaming beer.

Mr. Treffry waved it from him: "Not for me," he said: "Wish I could!
They won't let me look at it." And walking over, to the window with a
heavy tread, which trembled like his voice, he sat down. There was
something in his gait like the movements of an elephant's hind legs. He
was very tall (it was said, with the customary exaggeration of family
tradition, that there never had been a male Treffry under six feet in
height), but now he stooped, and had grown stout. There was something at
once vast and unobtrusive about his personality.

He wore a loose brown velvet jacket, and waistcoat, cut to show a soft
frilled shirt and narrow black ribbon tie; a thin gold chain was looped
round his neck and fastened to his fob. His heavy cheeks had folds in
them like those in a bloodhound's face. He wore big, drooping,
yellow-grey moustaches, which he had a habit of sucking, and a goatee
beard. He had long loose ears that might almost have been said to gap.
On his head there