ered the room,
and took a seat at the head of the long table at which the regular club
dinner was nightly served.

"Why, bless me!" said Homer, his face lighting up with pleasure. "Why,
Phidias, is that you?"

"I think so," said the new-comer, wearily; "at any rate, it's all that's
left of me."

"Come over here and lunch with us," said Homer. "You know Burns, don't
you?"

"Haven't the pleasure," said Phidias.

The poet and the sculptor were introduced, after which Phidias seated
himself at Homer's side.

"Are you any relation to Burns the poet?" the former asked, addressing
the Scotchman.

"I _am_ Burns the poet," replied the other.

"You don't look much like your statues," said Phidias, scanning his face
critically.

"No, thank the Fates!" said Burns, warmly. "If I did, I'd commit
suicide."

"Why don't you sue the sculptors for libel?" asked Phidias.

"You speak with a great deal of feeling, Phidias," said Homer, gravely.
"Have they done anything to hurt you?"

"They have," said Phidias. "I have just returned from a tour of the
world. I have seen the things they call sculpture in these degenerate
days, and I must confess--who shouldn't, perhaps--that I could have done
better work with a baseball-bat for a chisel and putty for the raw
material."

"I think I could do good work with a baseball-bat too," said Burns; "but
as for the raw material, give me the heads of the men who have sculped me
to work on. I'd leave them so that they'd look like some of your
Parthenon frieze figures with the noses gone."

"You are a vindictive creature," said Homer. "These men you criticise,
and whose heads you wish to sculp with a baseball-bat, have done more for
you than you ever did for them. Every statue of you these men have made
is a standing advertisement of your books, and it hasn't cost you a
penny. There isn't a doubt in my mind that if it were not for those
statues countless people would go to their graves supposing that the
great Scottish Burns were little rivulets, and not a poet. What
difference does it make to you if they haven't made an Adonis of you? You
never set them an example by making one of yourself. If there's
deception anywhere, it isn't you that is deceived; it is the mortals. And
who cares about them or their opinions?"

"I never thought of it in that way," said Burns. "I hate
caricatures--that is, caricatures of myself. I enjoy caricatures of
other people, but--"

"You have