“The sooner they get it, the less they trouble you.”
“Then where would you be?” she demanded.
“You’d be in the hole,” nodded Carl.
“Lord, you’d be just where you were to start with,” Barnes affirmed grandly. “Creditors can’t disturb you. They can only get your money.”
“That may be all very well for an artist,” Aunt Philomela answered darkly, as though at best artists were but jail-birds.
Carl was devouring his portion of the trout with evident relish.
“You’re a great fisherman, Joe,” he complimented.
“Thank you.”
Barnes turned back to Aunt Philomela.
“Artists are human,” he declared, “perhaps a little more human than other humans.”