"His idea," he said, "is to let your invention lapse."

"I know. The machine will never be made. But I want it to be made. I
want to see it working everywhere all over the world. You see I'm always
travelling about with the circus, sometimes in America, sometimes in
England. We go to a lot of different towns. We go to all the big towns
there are. I want to be able to go into shops everywhere, in every town
in the world and see my machine there. Don't you understand?"

"Perfectly," I said. "Mrs. Ascher explained the whole position to me
thoroughly. It's the artist's soul in you."

A look of puzzled annoyance came over the boy's face. His forehead
wrinkled and his fine eyes took an expression of painful doubt as they
met mine.

"Mrs. Ascher says things like that," he said, "and I don't know what she
means. I am not an artist. I never learned to draw, even; at least not
pictures. I can do geometrical drawing, of course, and make plans of
machines; but that's not being an artist. I can't paint. Why does she
say I am an artist?"

"That," I said, "is one of her little mannerisms. You will have to put
up with it."

Tim uses the word artist in a simple old-fashioned way, very much as
Father Bourke uses "blasphemy." There is a good deal to be said for
their practice. People like Mrs. Ascher ought to invent new terms when
they want to express uncommon thoughts. They have no right to borrow
words like "artist" and "blasphemy" from common speech in order to set
them parading about the world with novel meanings attached to them. It
is not fair to people like Tim Gorman and his Father Bourke. It is not
fair to the words themselves. I should not like to be treated in that
way if I were a word. I cannot imagine anything more annoying to a
respectable, steady-going word than to be called upon suddenly to
undertake work to which it is not accustomed. The domestic housemaid
is perfectly right in resisting any effort to make her do new kinds of
work. Her formula, "It's not my place," used when she is asked to make a
slice of toast, is unanswerable. Why should words be worse treated than
housemaids? It is the business of "artist" to stand for the man who
paints pictures in oils. "Blasphemy" describes aggravated breaches of
the third commandment. What right had Mrs. Ascher or any one else to
press them into new services? There ought to be a strong trade union
among words.

"And now," said Tim, "she says I'm not an artist after all b