os?"

He regarded me earnestly with his light blue eyes which looked so odd in
his swarthy black-bearded face.

"Is there any hope for the race of Sycorax?"

As we had read "The Tempest" the day before, I understood the
allusions.

"I would sooner be Ariel, Master," said I, by way of showing off my
learning.

"He was an ungrateful beggar too," said Paragot. He went on talking, but
I heard him not; for my childish mind quickly associated him with
Prospero, and I wondered where lay his magic staff with which he could
split pines and liberate tricksy spirits, and whether he had a beautiful
daughter hidden in some bower of Tavistock Street, and whether the
cadaverous Cherubino might not be a metamorphosed Ferdinand. He appeared
the embodiment of all wisdom and power, and yet he had the air of one
cheated of his kingdom. He seemed also to be of reverential age. As a
matter of fact he was not yet forty.

My attention was recalled by his rising and walking about the room.

"I am making this experiment on your vile body, my little Asticot," said
he, "to prove my Theory of Education. You have had, so far as it goes,
what is called an excellent Board School Training. You can read and
write and multiply sixty-four by thirty-seven in your head, and you can
repeat the Kings of England. If you had been fortunate and gone to a
Public school they would have stuffed your brain full of Greek verbs and
damned facts about triangles. But of the meaning of life, the value of
life, the art of life, you would never have had a glimmering perception.
I am going to educate you, my little Asticot, through the imagination.
The intellect can look after itself. We will go now to the National
Gallery."

He caught up his hat and threw me my cap, and we went out. He had a
sudden, breathless way of doing things. I am sure thirty seconds had
not elapsed between the idea of the National Gallery entering his head
and our finding ourselves on the stairs.

We went to the National Gallery. I came away with a reeling
undistinguishable mass of form and colour before my eyes. I felt sick.
Only one single picture stood out clear. Paragot talked Italian art to
my uncomprehending ears all the way home.

"Now," said he, when he had settled himself comfortably in his old
wicker-work chair again, "which of the pictures did you like best?"

Why that particular picture (save that it is the supreme art of a
supreme genius) should have alone fixed itself on m