He had been acknowledged by experts to be the best Link ever exhibited in Australia, and Links included all sorts of hairy freaks, wild men of the woods, and shaggy eccentrics from Borneo; but Nicholas Crips could not rest satisfied as a mere interpreter of monkey character.
Nickie reached out and developed, and his newest device was a dinner in the cage, an actual dinner, in which Madame Marve, bewitchingly dressed in a costume that was a cross between the uniform of a hospital nurse and the garb of a French peasant girl, acted as waitress, and the Missing Link figured as the diner. Actual edibles were used, and a "practicable" bottle of beer.
This turn gave the Living Skeleton great concern. "I wish yer wouldn't do it, Nickie," said Matty, from his pedestal next the cage of the Missing Link. "Et's awful tryin' to a pore bloke what ain't 'ad nothin' fer dinner but a dry biscuit t' 'ave 't sit 'ere, patient as an owl, while you're hoggin' into ther grub, an' pourin' fresh beer into yersell regardless iv expense."
"Get out," replied the Missing Link. "Call yourself an artist. Every pro. has to suffer for his art. You have to suffer for yours, going short in your eating so as to keep in proper condition. You wouldn't have a fellow artist sacrifice his chance of becoming celebrated just because it isn't quite pleasant to you to be a spectator at the banquet?"
"Art he blowed!" said the Living Skeleton. "Give we a yard o' tripe an' a scoopful iv mashed potatoos."
"You aren't cut out for a public career. Matty you ought to abandon
Living Skeletons and get a good eating part."
"Wish t' 'eaven I could, but there's ther missus an' ther kids t' think of."
"Well, you can turn your head away when the banquet scene's on."
"What if I do; can't I smell it?"
There was no escape—poor Matty Cann had to be sacrificed to the requirements of art.