AN ARTISTIC EPISODE
["Incapacity for work has come to be accepted as the hall-mark of genius.... The collector wants only the thing that is rare, and therefore the artist must make his work as rare as he can."—Daily Chronicle.]
Josephine found me stretched full length in a hammock in the garden.
"Why aren't you at work?" she asked; "not feeling seedy, I hope?"
"Never better," said I. "But I've been making myself too cheap."
"We couldn't possibly help going to the Joneses last night, dear."
"Tush," said I. "I mean there is too much of me."
"I don't quite understand," she said; "but there certainly will be if you spend your mornings lolling in that hammock."
The distortive wantonness of this remark left me cold.
"I have made up my mind," I continued, quite seriously, "to do no more work for a considerable time."
"But, my dear boy, just think——"
"I'm going to make myself scarce," I insisted.
"Geoffrey!" she exclaimed, "I knew you weren't well!"
I released myself.
"Josephine," I said solemnly, "those estimable persons who collect my pictures will think nothing of them if they become too common."
"How do you know there are such persons?" she queried.
"I must decline to answer that question," I replied; "but if there are none it is because my work is not yet sufficiently rare and precious. I propose to work no more—say, for six or seven years. By that time my reputation will be made, and there will be the fiercest competition for the smallest canvas I condescend to sign."
She kissed me.
"I came out for the housekeeping-money," she remarked simply.
I went into the house to fetch the required sum, and, by some means I cannot explain, got to work again upon the latest potboiler.
Music Readily Acquired.—Stealing a march.
