Though you never get on with a new."
During the two of three weeks following their success with Gilead Beck the Twins were conspicuous, had any one noticed them, for a recklessness of expenditure quite without parallel in their previous history. They plunged as regarded hansoms, paying whatever was asked with an airy prodigality; they dined at the club every day, and drank champagne at all hours; they took half-guinea stalls at theatres: they went down to Greenwich and had fish-dinners; they appeared with new chains and rings; they even changed their regular hours of sleep, and sometimes passed the whole day broad awake, in the pursuit of youthful pleasures. They winked and nodded at each other in a way which suggested all kinds of delirious delights; and Cornelius even talked of adding an episode to the Epic, based on his own later experiences, which he would call, he said, the Jubilee of Joy.
The funds for this fling, all too short, were provided by their American patron. Gilead Beck had no objection to advance them something on account; the young gentlemen found it so pleasant to spend money, that they quickly overcame scruples about asking for more; perhaps they would have gone on getting more, but for a word of caution spoken by Jack Dunquerque. In consequence of this unkindness they met each other one evening in the Studio with melancholy faces.
"I had a letter to-day from Mr. Gilead Beck," said Cornelius to Humphrey.
"So had I," said Humphrey to Cornelius.
"In answer to a note from me," said Cornelius.
"In reply to a letter of mine," said Humphrey.
"It is sometimes a little awkward, brother Humphrey," Cornelius remarked with a little temper, "that our inclinations so often prompt us to do the same thing at the same time."
Said Humphrey, "I suppose then, Cornelius, that you asked him for money?"
"I did, Humphrey. How much has the Patron advanced you already on the great Picture?"