on with undisguised anxiety, and (after it had been silently
weighed in the balances and found wanting) whisking it away with an
open gesture of despair. By the time the second round was completed, we
were both extremely depressed.

"Oh!" he groaned, breaking the long silence, "it's quite unnecessary you
should speak!"

"Do you want me to be frank with you? I think you are wasting time,"
said I.

"You don't see any promise?" he inquired, beguiled by some return of
hope, and turning upon me the embarrassing brightness of his eye. "Not
in this still-life here of the melon? One fellow thought it good."

It was the least I could do to give the melon a more particular
examination; which, when I had done, I could but shake my head. "I am
truly sorry, Pinkerton," said I, "but I can't advise you to persevere."

He seemed to recover his fortitude at the moment, rebounding from
disappointment like a man of india-rubber. "Well," said he stoutly, "I
don't know that I'm surprised. But I'll go on with the course; and throw
my whole soul into it too. You mustn't think the time is lost. It's all
culture; it will help me to extend my relations when I get back home; it
may fit me for a position on one of the illustrateds; and then I can
always turn dealer," he said, uttering the monstrous proposition, which
was enough to shake the Latin Quarter to the dust, with entire
simplicity. "It's all experience, besides," he continued; "and it seems
to me there's a tendency to underrate experience, both as net profit and
investment. Never mind. That's done with. But it took courage for you to
say what you did, and I'll never forget it. Here's my hand, Mr. Dodd.
I'm not your equal in culture or talent."

"You know nothing about that," I interrupted. "I have seen your work,
but you haven't seen mine."

"No more I have," he cried; "and let's go see it at once! But I know you
are away up; I can feel it here."

To say truth, I was almost ashamed to introduce him to my studio--my
work, whether absolutely good or bad, being so vastly superior to his.
But his spirits were now quite restored; and he amazed me, on the way,
with his light-hearted talk and new projects. So that I began at last to
understand how matters lay: that this was not an artist who had been
deprived of the practice of his single art; but only a business man of
very extended interests, informed (perhaps something of the most
suddenly) that one investment out of twenty had gone