“Half a dozen epicene young pagans who haven’t even been to Algiers will tell you, first, that your notion is borrowed, and, secondly, that it isn’t Art.
“’This comes of my leaving town for a month. Dickie, you’ve been promenading among the toy-shops and hearing people talk.”
“I couldn’t help it,” said Dick, penitently. “You weren’t here, and it was lonely these long evenings. A man can’t work for ever.”
“A man might have gone to a pub, and got decently drunk.”
“I wish I had; but I forgathered with some men of sorts. They said they were artists, and I knew some of them could draw,—but they wouldn’t draw. They gave me tea,—tea at five in the afternoon!—and talked about Art and the state of their souls. As if their souls mattered. I’ve heard more about Art and seen less of her in the last six months than in the whole of my life. Do you remember Cassavetti, who worked for some continental syndicate, out with the desert column? He was a regular Christmas-tree of contraptions when he took the field in full fig, with his water-bottle, lanyard, revolver, writing-case, housewife, gig-lamps, and the Lord knows what all. He used to fiddle about with ’em and show us how they worked; but he never seemed to do much except fudge his reports from the Nilghai. See?”
“Dear old Nilghai! He’s in town, fatter than ever. He ought to be up here this evening. I see the comparison perfectly. You should have kept clear of all that man-millinery. Serves you right; and I hope it will unsettle your mind.”
“It won’t. It has taught me what Art—holy sacred Art—means.”
“You’ve learnt something while I’ve been away. What is Art?”
“Give ’em what they know, and when you’ve done it once do it again.”
Dick dragged forward a canvas laid face to the wall. “Here’s a sample of real Art. It’s going to be a facsimile reproduction for a weekly. I called it “His Last Shot.” It’s worked up from the little water-colour I made outside El Maghrib. Well, I lured my model, a beautiful rifleman, up here with drink; I drored him, and I redrored him, and I redrored him, and I made him a flushed, dishevelled, bedevilled scallawag, with his helmet at the back of his head, and the living fear of death in his eye, and the blood oozing out of a cut over his ankle-bone. He wasn’t pretty, but he was all soldier and very much man.”