"
"Already! By Jove, he has cheek! I don't know about his reputation, but he'll
come a cropper if he tries that sort of thing."
"So I told him. I don't think he believes it."
"They never do when they first start off. What's that wreck on the ground
there?"
"Specimen of his latest impertinence." Torpenhow thrust the torn edges of the
canvas together and showed the well-groomed picture to the Nilghai, who looked
at it for a moment and whistled.
"It's a chromo," said he,--"a chromo-litholeomargarine fake! What possessed him
to do it? And yet how thoroughly he has caught the note that catches a public
who think with their boots and read with their elbows! The cold-blooded
insolence of the work almost saves it; but he mustn't go on with this. Hasn't
he been praised and cockered up too much? You know these people here have no
sense of proportion. They'll call him a second Detaille and a third-hand
Meissonier while his fashion lasts. It's windy diet for a colt."
"I don't think it affects Dick much. You might as well call a young wolf a
lion and expect him to take the compliment in exchange for a shin-bone. Dick's
soul is in the bank. He's working for cash."
"Now he has thrown up war work, I suppose he doesn't see that the obligations
of the service are just the same, only the proprietors are changed.
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