“Bred to the law, belike?”
“I have studied, sir, but not practised as a lawyer.”
“Well, now, I expected you was!” said Quackinboss, with an air of self-satisfaction. “You chaps betray yourselves sooner than any other class in all creation; as Flay Harris says: 'A lawyer is a fellow won't drink out of the bung-hole, but must always be for tapping the cask for himself.' You ain't long in these parts?”
“No, sir; a very short time, indeed,” said Ogden, drearily.
“You needn't sigh about it, stranger, though it is main dull in these diggin's! Here's a people that don't understand human natur'. What I mean, sir, is, human natur' means goin' ahead; doin' a somewhat your father and your grandfather never so much as dreamt of. But what are these critturs about? Jest showin' the great things that was done centuries before they was born,—what pictures and statues and monuments their own ancestors could make, and of which they are jest showmen, nothing more!”
“The Arts are Italy's noblest inheritance,” said Ogden, sententionsly.
“That ain't my platform, stranger. Civilization never got anything from painters or sculptors. They never taught mankind to be truthful or patient or self-denyin' or charitable. You may look at a bronze Hercules till you 're black in the face, and it will never make you give a cent to a lame cripple. I 'll go further again, stranger, and I 'll say that there ain't anything has thrown so many stumblin'-blocks before pro-gress as what you call the Arts, for there ain't the equal o' them to make people idlers. What's all that loafing about galleries, I ask ye, but the worst of all idling? If you want them sort of emotions, go to the real article, sir. Look at an hospital, that's more life-like than Gerard Dow and his dropsical woman,—ay, and may touch your heart, belike, before you get away.”
“Though your conversation interests me much, sir, you will pardon my observing that I feel myself an intruder.”
“No, you ain't; I'm jest in a talkin' humor, and I'd rather have you than that Italian crittur, as don't understand me.”
“Even the flattery of your observation, sir, cannot make me forget that another object claims my attention.”