He scowled at the fire. Art meant for him his own countless daubs, and
the sickening smell of oily paints and musk, and soiled silk tea gowns,
and the whole slovenly, disreputable scramble of Bohemian life in Paris.

"I loathe art!" he said, with a furious blow at the smouldering log in
the fireplace, as if he struck these things all down into the ashes
with it.

"Will you go back into the Church, dear?" his mother ventured timidly.

"Most certainly, no!" he said vehemently. "Of all mean frauds the
perfunctory priest is the meanest. If I could be like one of the old
holy gospellers--then indeed!"

He was silent a moment, and then began to stride up and down the long
hall, his head thrown back, his chest inflated.

"I have a message for the world, mother."

"I am sure of it," she interrupted eagerly.

"But I must deliver it in my own way. I have lost two years. I am
going to put in big strokes of work now. In the next two years I
intend to take my proper place in my own country. I will find standing
room for George Waldeaux," with a complacent smile. "And in the
meantime, of course, I must make money enough to support you and the
boy handsomely. So you see, mother," he ended, laughing, "I have no
time to lose."

"No, George!" It was the proudest moment of her life. How heroic and
generous he was!

She filled his pocket-book the next day, when he went to New York to
take the world by the throat. It was really not George Waldeaux's
fault that she filled it.

Nor was it his fault that during the next two years the world was in no
hurry to run to his feet, either to learn of him, or to bring him its
bags of gold. The little man did his best; he put his "message," as he
called it, into poems, into essays, into a novel. Publishers thanked
him effusively for the pleasure of reading them, and--sent them back.
The only word of his which reached the public was a review of the work
of a successful author. It was so personal, so malignant, that George,
when he read it, writhed with shame and humiliation. He tore the paper
into fragments.

"Am I so envious and small as that! Before God, no words of mine shall
ever go into print again!" he said, and he kept his word.

He came down every month or two to his mother.

"Why not try teaching, George?" she said anxiously. "These great
scholars and scientific men have places and reputations which even you
need not despise."

He laughed bitterly. "I tri