“The degenerate sculptor’s ideal!”
“Anyhow, it looks a lot better without them—or her,” said Stanny. “I like it, though it’s been damaged a bit by the weather, and by the hubs of the busses driving through. Wish you could have seen the pair of drivers I saw to-night, racing through abreast, licking their horses like the chariot race in Ben-Hur.”
“It’s not really good,” said Jasper. “Just a lot of miscellaneous architecture.”
“Well, you ought to know, old Goat and Compasses!”
“I like to look at it,” said Wilfred shyly. “Just because it was run up for a sort of festival. It was a damn fool thing to spend all that money on a monument of lath and plaster. That’s why I like it. Everything else is so damned useful. . . .”
He suddenly became aware that both young fellows were listening to him. Self-consciousness supervened, and his tongue began to stumble. They listen! he thought. I can talk too.
“Do you paint?” asked Stanny.
Wilfred shook his head. “I’m only a millionaire’s office boy,” he said, trying to carry it off with a grin.
“That’s nothing,” said Stanny quickly. “I make line drawings for James Gordon Bennett, and Jasper here, draws plans for a millionaire jerry-builder.”
“Some day I hope to write,” Wilfred said. In that moment his resolution was formed.