"Incredible!" he cried scornfully. "How can you be so utterly tactless as to remind me in such a manner of the miserable profession I am in?"
"Why do you call it a miserable profession?"
"Why do I call it a miserable profession?" he repeated very angrily. "Do you really think that I find a great pleasure in hobbling round fellows who are not fit to hold a candle to me?"
"I thought," I remarked, after a little silence, "that you had become an artist."
He laughed so terribly that all the passers-by stopped and looked at us.
"An artist, indeed! That is more than I have ever expected from you. Do you believe that artists drop from heaven during the night?"
"Oh no," I replied hurriedly, in order to appease his temper; "I quite know that it takes many years sometimes before they make a name for themselves."
"Then, if you know it, why do you demand that I should be an artist, when there was never the slightest chance for me to educate myself?"
"No, of course not. What I thought was that by now you might have found out which of your capacities is the most eminent."