“And there stand the Master and the young Corinthian laughing at you,” said Leontium.
They approached. “Are you a judge?” asked Metrodorus of Theon.
“I am afraid not, though the confession will mar my compliments.”
“But I am,” said the Gargettian humorously: “And though I have all the inclination in the world, yet I cannot quarrel with the performance. Well outlined and finely colored. The attitude and air hit exactly. The features too—perhaps—the only possible perhaps my ill-nature can stumble on, perhaps the expression is too blooming, and less mental than that of the original.”
“Why there—there it is!” cried the scholar, his face resuming all its vexation. “The look of an idiot instead of a genius.”
“Not quite that either: only of a Hebe instead of a Juno. More like our Hedeia.”
“Like a monster!” muttered the angry artist.
“Oh! Hercules, oh! Hercules!” cried the sage. “What it is to rub a sore place! Better break a man’s leg than blow a feather on his razed shin. Had I (turning to Theon) told him he had drawn a humpbacked Thersites he would have blessed me, rather than for this pretty compliment of a blooming-faced Hebe.”
“I might as well have done one as the other: they were equally like the original.”
“I must bow to that compliment,” said Leontium, laying her hand on her breast, and inclining with affected gravity to the painter.