it? I believe
in Ruskin. I tell you----"

"_Bah_!" said the gentleman in the corner, with almost explosive
violence. He fired it like a big gun across the path of the incipient
argument, and slew the prosperous-looking gentleman at once. He met
our eyes, as we turned to him, with a complacent smile on his large
white, clean-shaven face. He was a corpulent person, dressed in black,
and with something of the quality of a second-hand bishop in his
appearance. The demolished owner of the watch-chain made some
beginnings of a posthumous speech.

"_Bah_!" said the gentleman in the corner, with even more force than
before, and so finished him.

"These people will never understand," he said, after a momentary pause,
addressing the gentleman with the Jovian coiffure, and indicating the
remains of the prosperous gentleman by a wave of a large white hand.
"Why do you argue? Art is ever for the few."

"I did not argue," said the gentleman with the hair. "I was
interrupted."

The owner of the watch-chain, who had been sitting struggling with his
breath, now began to sob out his indignation. "What do you _mean_,
sir? Saying _Bah_! sir, when I am talking----"

The gentleman with the large face held up a soothing hand. "Peace,
peace," he said. "I did not interrupt you. I annihilated you. Why
did you presume to talk to artists about art? Go away, or I shall have
to say Bah! again. Go and have a fit. Leave us--two rare souls who
may not meet again--to our talking."

"Did you ever see such abominable _rudeness_, sir?" said the gentleman
with the watch-chain, appealing to me. There were tears in his eyes.
At the same time the young man with the aureole made some remark to the
corpulent gentleman that I failed to catch.

"These artists," said I, "are unaccountable, irresponsible. You
must----"

"Take it from whence it comes," said the insulted one, very loudly, and
bitterly glaring at his opponent. But the two artists were conversing
serenely. I felt the undignified quality of our conversation. "Have
you seen _Punch_?" said I, thrusting it into his hand.

He looked at the paper for a moment in a puzzled way; then understood,
thanked me, and began to read with a thunderous scowl, every now and
then shooting murderous glances at his antagonist in the opposite
corner, or coughing in an aggressive manner.

"You do your best," the gentleman with the long hair was saying; "and
they say, 'What is it for?' 'It