d perhaps a few so-called ideas. I know
painters who dash off a hand or a foot, a horse's head or an oak-tree,
with as unerring an audacity as--well, as a thorough stenographer will
bring a two hours' speech into the compass of an octavo page. But Lord
have mercy upon them, for they have long since ceased to know what they
do; and as the dear public has an even coarser sense, a still blunter
natural feeling, and even more respect for appearances--why, it's all
just as it should be, and no one can complain that he has been
cheated."

For some time after this speech silence reigned in the studio. There
were heard only the fluttering of the sparrows, the heavy breathing of
Homo, for the old fellow was already enjoying his morning nap again,
and, in the saint-factory near by, the clatter and scraping and picking
of seven or eight chisels in the hands of the assistants who were hard
at work.

"Thank you, Daedalus," said Felix, at last. "Upon the whole you are
perfectly right, and I think it very kind of you to try and scare me
off so thoroughly. But, with your permission, I intend to hold to my
intentions until I have been made wise by my own experience. If, a year
from this time, you preach me the same sermon, you shall see how
penitently I will beat my breast and become converted from all my
sins. But now, first give me something to sin with. Look here, my
coat is already off, and I have nothing more to do but to roll up my
shirt-sleeves."

"So be it, then!" replied Jansen, with a good-natured smile. "Not as
God wills, but as you wish--here!"

He went to the large closet and took out a skull, which he laid
on a little table near the window. At the same time he wheeled a
modeling-bench out of the corner, placed it before the table, and
pointed, without speaking, to a big lump of clay that lay moist and
shiny in a tub.

"Are we to study phrenology?" laughed Felix, rather nervously, for a
suspicion began to dawn upon him.

"No, my dear fellow, but we must take pains to make as exact a copy as
possible of this round mass of bones.... We shall have plenty of time
for the flesh when we have first mastered the skeleton."

"I am to model a whole skeleton?"

"Bone for bone, down to the big toe. In this way we combine an
anatomical course with practice in modeling forms. Yes, my dear
fellow," he smilingly continued, as he perceived the horrified
expression of his pupil; "if you thought to begin your apprenticeship
with t