"When he talks about colour-values."
"I believe you're right. I'm feeling a bit muzzy about the legs, as if
I couldn't move. A bit fuzzy—"
"Muzzy, I think you said."
"Fuzzy."
"Muzzy. But we needn't quarrel about it, need we? I shall be sick in a minute, old man."
"It's rather hard on a fellow to be always misunderstood. However, as I was saying when you interrupted me, I am feeling slightly wobblish in the peripatetic or ambulatorial department. But my head's all right. Now do be serious, for a change. You don't seem to catch my drift. This blue sea, and those orange tints on the mountains, I mean to say—how are they going to be held fast by the optic apparatus? The lens, you understand. I want to be able to shove them into a sketch-book, like you fellows. Well, how? That's what I want to know. How to turn my retina into a canvas."
"Rot, my good sir."
"It may be rot to you, but it strikes me as rather unfortunate, all the same, when you come to think of it. This blue sea, I mean, and those orange tints and all that, you know. Take a sunrise by John Addington. Of course, as a matter of fact, we ought both to have been born in another age—an age of sinecures. Why are sinecures extinct? I feel as if I could be Governor of Madagascar at this moment."
"I feel as if you were getting slightly intoxicated."
"That's me. But it's only my legs. My head is astonishingly clear. And I do wish you would try, just for once in a way, to follow my meaning. Be reasonable, for a change! I mean to say that a man has talents for all sorts of things. I, for example, have pronounced views upon agriculture. But what's the use of farming without capital? What I mean to say is this: we see the blue sea and the orange tints on the mountains, and all that, I mean, and we don't seem to realize, I mean, that we may die at any moment and never see them again. How few people grasp that simple fact! It's enough to make one sick. Or do you think it's a laughing matter?"