and was picking teeth at the window.
"Art!--pooh, pooh!--what's art got to do with it? In your place, I
should avoid taking such highflown words on my tongue. Call it
something else. Do you think it makes a jot of difference whether you
call it art or ... pludderdump? Not so much"--and he snapped his
fingers--"will be changed, though you never call it anything!
Vanity!--it's nothing but vanity! A set of raw youths inflate
themselves like frogs, and have opinions on art, as on what they have
eaten for their dinner.--Do your work and hold your tongue! A scale
well played is worth all the words that were ever said--and that, the
majority of you can't do."

He closed his toothpick with a snap, spat dexterously at a spittoon
which stood in a corner of the room, and the interview was over.

As Maurice descended the spiral stair, he said to himself that, no
matter how long he remained in Leipzig, he would never trouble Schwarz
with his presence again. The man was a loose-mouthed bully. But in
future he might seek out others to be the butt of his clumsy wit. He,
Maurice, was too good for that.--And squaring his shoulders, he walked
erectly down the street, and across the JOHANNAPARK.

But none the less, he did not go straight home. For, below the comedy
of intolerance at which he was playing, lurked, as he well knew, the
consciousness that his true impression of the past hour had still to be
faced. He might postpone doing this; he could not shirk it. It was all
very well: he might repeat to himself that he had happened on Schwarz
at an inopportune moment. That did not count. For him, Maurice, the
opportune moment simply did not exist; he was one of those people who
are always inopportune, come and go as they will. He might have waited
for days; he would never have caught Schwarz in the right mood, or in
the nick of time. How he envied those fortunate mortals who always
arrived at the right moment, and instinctively said the right thing!
That talent had never been his. With him it was blunder.

One thing, though, that still perplexed him, was that not once, since
he had been in Leipzig, had he caught a glimpse of that native goodness
of heart, for which he had heard Schwarz lauded. The master had done
his duty by him--nothing more. Neither had had any personal feeling for
the other; and the words Schwarz had used this afternoon had only been
the outcome of a long period of reserve, even of distrust. At this
moment, when he