reputation.'

'Already! By Jove, he has cheek! I don't know about his reputation, but
he'll come a cropper if he tries that sort of thing.'

'So I told him. I don't think he believes it.'

'They never do when they first start off. What's that wreck on the
ground there?'

'Specimen of his latest impertinence.' Torpenhow thrust the torn edges of
the canvas together and showed the well-groomed picture to the Nilghai,
who looked at it for a moment and whistled.

'It's a chromo,' said he,--'a chromo-litholeomargarine fake! What
possessed him to do it? And yet how thoroughly he has caught the note
that catches a public who think with their boots and read with their
elbows! The cold-blooded insolence of the work almost saves it; but he
mustn't go on with this. Hasn't he been praised and cockered up too
much? You know these people here have no sense of proportion. They'll
call him a second Detaille and a third-hand Meissonier while his fashion
lasts. It's windy diet for a colt.'

'I don't think it affects Dick much. You might as well call a young wolf a
lion and expect him to take the compliment in exchange for a shin-bone.

Dick's soul is in the bank. He's working for cash.'

'Now he has thrown up war work, I suppose he doesn't see that the
obligations of the service are just the same, only the proprietors are