The gentleman with the Jovian coiffure began to speak as the train moved. "'Tis the utmost degradation of art," he said. He had apparently fallen into conversation with his companion upon the platform.
"I don't see it," said this companion, a prosperous-looking gentleman with a gold watch-chain. "This art for art's sake—I don't believe in it, I tell you. Art should have an aim. If it don't do you good, if it ain't moral, I'd as soon not have it. What good is it? I believe in Ruskin. I tell you——"
"Bah!" said the gentleman in the corner, with almost explosive violence. He fired it like a big gun across the path of the incipient argument, and slew the prosperous-looking gentleman at once. He met our eyes, as we turned to him, with a complacent smile on his large white, clean-shaven face. He was a corpulent person, dressed in black, and with something of the quality of a second-hand bishop in his appearance. The demolished owner of the watch-chain made some beginnings of a posthumous speech.
"Bah!" said the gentleman in the corner, with even more force than before, and so finished him.
"These people will never understand," he said, after a momentary pause, addressing the gentleman with the Jovian coiffure, and indicating the remains of the prosperous gentleman by a wave of a large white hand. "Why do you argue? Art is ever for the few."
"I did not argue," said the gentleman with the hair. "I was interrupted."
The owner of the watch-chain, who had been sitting struggling with his breath, now began to sob out his indignation. "What do you mean, sir? Saying Bah! sir, when I am talking——"
The gentleman with the large face held up a soothing hand. "Peace, peace," he said. "I did not interrupt you. I annihilated you. Why did you presume to talk to artists about art? Go away, or I shall have to say Bah! again. Go and have a fit. Leave us—two rare souls who may not meet again—to our talking."
"Did you ever see such abominable rudeness, sir?" said the gentleman with the watch-chain, appealing to me. There were tears in his eyes. At the same time the young man with the aureole made some remark to the corpulent gentleman that I failed to catch.
"These artists," said I, "are unaccountable, irresponsible. You must——"