Well, as it happened, I had once photographed a drawing for a fellow, and the easel I had stood it on had come up through the picture; and I knew by the way Benlian nodded that that was the kind of thing he meant.
"More," he said.
I told him I'd once seen a photograph of a man with a bowler hat on, and the shape of his crown had showed through the hat.
"Yes, yes," he said, musing; and then he asked: "Have you ever heard of things not photographing at all?"
But I couldn't tell him anything about that; and off he started again, about Light and Physics and so on. Then, as soon as I could get a word in, I said, "But, of course, the camera isn't Art." (Some of my miniatures, you understand, were jolly nice little things.)
"No—no," he murmured absently; and then abruptly he said: "Eh? What's that? And what the devil do you know about it?"
"Well," said I, in a dignified sort of way, "considering that for ten years I've been—"
"Chut!… Hold your tongue," he said, turning away.
There he was, talking to me again, just as if I'd asked him in to bully me. But you've got to be decent to a fellow when he's in your own place; and by-and-by I asked him, but in a cold, off-hand sort of way, how his own work was going on. He turned to me again.
"Would you like to see it?" he asked.