"Isn't it good? Doesn't it come out well?—deuce take you, why don't you speak?"
"Not bad—for a photogravure," said Warburton, who had the air of a grave elder in the presence of this ebullient youth.
"Be hanged! We know all about that. The thing is that it's there. Don't you feel any surprise? Haven't you got anything to say? Don't you see what this means, you old ragamuffin?"
"Shouldn't wonder if it meant coin of the realm—for your shrewd dealer."
"For me too, my boy, for me too! Not out of this thing, of course. But I've arrived, I'm lancé, the way is clear! Why, you don't seem to know what it means getting into The Art World."
"I seem to remember," said Warburton, smiling, "that a month or two ago, you hadn't language contemptuous enough for this magazine and all connected with it."
"Don't be an ass!" shrilled the other, who was all this time circling about the little room with much gesticulation. "Of course one talks like that when one hasn't enough to eat and can't sell a picture. I don't pretend to have altered my opinion about photogravures, and all that. But come now, the thing itself? Be honest, Warburton. Is it bad, now? Can you look at that picture, and say that it's worthless?"
"I never said anything of the kind."
"No, no! You're too deucedly good-natured. But I always detected what you were thinking, and I saw it didn't surprise you at all when the Academy muffs refused it."
"There you're wrong," cried Warburton. "I was really surprised."