“Nonsense, nonsense,” said Peter, in much concern.  “Look at the good you are doing to the working man.  Look how you are sweeping away the Fads.  Ah, it’s a grand thing to be gifted, Tom.  The idea of your chuckin’ yourself away on a composin’-room!  Manual labour is all very well for plain men like me, with no gift but just enough brains to see into the realities of things—­to understand that we’ve got no soul and no immortality, and all that—­and too selfish to look after anybody’s comfort but my own and mother’s and the kids’.  But men like you and Cantercot—­it ain’t right that you should be peggin’ away at low material things.  Not that I think Cantercot’s gospel any value to the masses.  The Beautiful is all very well for folks who’ve got nothing else to think of, but give me the True.  You’re the man for my money, Mortlake.  No reference to the funds, Tom, to which I contribute little enough, Heaven knows; though how a place can know anything, Heaven alone knows. You give us the Useful, Tom; that’s what the world wants more than the Beautiful.”

“Socrates said that the Useful is the Beautiful,” said Denzil.

“That may be,” said Peter, “but the Beautiful ain’t the Useful.”

“Nonsense!” said Denzil.  “What about Jessie—­I mean Miss Dymond?  There’s a combination for you.  She always reminds me of Grace Darling.  How is she, Tom?”

“She’s dead!” snapped Tom.

“What?” Denzil turned as white as a Christmas ghost.

“It was in the papers,” said Tom; “all about her and the lifeboat.”

“Oh, you mean Grace Darling,” said Denzil, visibly relieved.  “I meant Miss Dymond.”

“You needn’t be so interested in her,” said Tom surlily.  “She don’t appreciate it.  Ah, the shower is over.  I must be going.”

“No, stay a little longer, Tom,” pleaded Peter.

“I see a lot about you in the papers, but very little of your dear old phiz now.  I can’t spare the time to go and hear you.  But I really must give myself a treat.  When’s your next show?”

“Oh, I am always giving shows,” said Tom, smiling a little.  “But my next big performance is on the twenty-first of January, when that picture of poor Mr. Constant is to be unveiled at the Bow Break o’ Day Club.  They have written to Gladstone and other big pots to come down.  I do hope the old man accepts.  A non-political gathering like this is the only occasion we could both speak at, and I have never been on the same platform with Gladstone.”

He forgot his depression and ill-temper in the prospect, and spoke with more animation.

“No, I should hope not, Tom,” said Peter.  “What with his Fads about the Bible being a Rock, and Monarchy being the right thing, he is a most dangerous man to lead the Radicals.  He never lays his axe to the root of anything—­except oak trees.”