here and
there, so long as you are working for a high and noble goal?"

"This fellow's mad," thought Stubbs: "but the woman's rather pretty, and
he's not bad fun himself, if you come to that." What he said was
different: "I thought you said you were an actor?"

"I certainly did so," replied Leon. "I am one, or, alas! I was."

"And so you want me to be an actor, do you?" continued the
undergraduate. "Why, man, I could never so much as learn the stuff; my
memory's like a sieve; and as for acting, I've no more idea than a cat."

"The stage is not the only course," said Leon. "Be a sculptor, be a
dancer, be a poet or a novelist; follow your heart, in short, and do
some thorough work before you die."

"And do you call all these things art?" inquired Stubbs.

"Why, certainly!" returned Leon. "Are they not all branches?"

"Oh! I didn't know," replied the Englishman. "I thought an artist meant
a fellow who painted."

The singer stared at him in some surprise.

"It is the difference of language," he said at last. "This Tower of
Babel, when shall we have paid for it? If I could speak English you
would follow me more readily."

"Between you and me, I don't believe I should," replied the other. "You
seem to have thought a devil of a lot about this business. For my part,
I admire the stars, and like to have them shining--it's so cheery--but
hang me if I had an idea it had anything to do with art! It's not in my
line, you see. I'm not intellectual; I have no end of trouble to scrape
through my exams., I can tell you! But I'm not a bad sort at bottom," he
added, seeing his interlocutor looked distressed even in the dim
star-shine, "and I rather like the play, and music, and guitars, and
things."

Leon had a perception that the understanding was incomplete. He changed
the subject.

"And so you travel on foot?" he continued. "How romantic! How
courageous! And how are you pleased with my land? How does the scenery
affect you among these wild hills of ours?"

"Well, the fact is," began Stubbs--he was about to say that he didn't
care for scenery, which was not at all true, being, on the contrary,
only an athletic undergraduate pretension; but he had begun to suspect
that Berthelini liked a different sort of meat, and substituted
something else: "The fact is, I think it jolly. They told me it was no
good up here; even the guide-book said so; but I don't know what they
meant. I think it is deuced pretty--upon my word, I do."