The Journal of a Disappointed Man

"Here is a jolly little sorrow I caught this morning." The joke pleased him and we roared, bellowed. "That terrible forefinger of yours," he smiled. "Like Cardinal Richelieu's eyes--piercing?" I suggested with appreciation. (It is because I tap him on his shirt front in the space between waistcoat and tie aggressively for emphasis in conversation.) "You must regard my passion for painting," he began once more, "as a sort of dipsomania--I really can't help myself." I jumped on him vehemently,-- "Exactly, my pernickety friend; it's something abnormal and unnatural. When, for purposes of self-culture, I see a man deliberately lop off great branches of himself so as to divert his strength into one limb, I know that if he is successful he'll be something as vulgar as a fat woman at a country fair; and if he is unsuccessful he'll be just a pathetic mutilation.... You are trying to pervert a natural instinct. You want to paint, I believe. Quite so. But when a boy reaches the age of puberty he does not grow a palette on his chin but hair.... Still, now you recognise it as a bad habit, why need I say more?" ("Why indeed?") "It's a vice, and I'm very sorry for you, old boy. I'll do all I can--come and have some dinner with me to-night." "Oh! thank you very much," says my gentleman, "but I'm not at all sorry for myself." "I thought as much. So that we are not so very much agreed after all. We're not shaking hands after the boxing contest, but scowling at each other from the ropes and shaping for another round."