"As the first instalment of twenty-five pounds down is all I am ever likely to get, I will take it now—no, that one won't do; it's a peppermint-drop, not a sovereign. That's not the way to get on, young man!"
"Isn't it?" asked young Bansted Downs thoughtfully. "I'm glad you told me. I thought perhaps it might be; but, of course, I've got to learn."
That very week young Bansted Downs commenced his studies under the Master Genius. He found he had a very great deal to learn.
"The difference between talent and genius is that talent does what it can and genius does what it must—you will find that in the poets," said the Master Genius. "Consequently, to be a genius, you need not feel that you have the ability to do a thing, but only that it is necessary to do it. A house-painter is a specimen of genius: he has not the ability to do his work; but he is compelled to do it in order to obtain the means for his Saturday drinks. But, of course, that's only one kind of genius. What we have to teach you first is to feel that you must do something transcendent—and then all you've got to do is to do it—see?"
So, acting on his instructions, young Bansted Downs went to the office and sat quite still day after day for a month or two, with his eyes fixed on space; and one afternoon at the end of that time he got up and rushed at Power junior (who took charge of him in these preliminary studies), and announced that he felt the irresistible impulse to do something great and wonderful.
"What sort of thing?" asked the Junior Genius.
"I don't know—anything—something stupendous and transcendent—a master-piece!" said young Bansted Downs.
"Knock it off, then. Don't make a labour of it, mind; that would spoil all the genius of it. Just knock it off—shed it—see?"
The apprentice went back to his stool in the corner and knocked off that scintillation of genius.
"Very good for a beginner," said the Junior Genius; "you show much promise. I shall soon be able to hand you over to my father for the Higher Grades."