"I've been stung by the microbe of the precious! I'll be talking Art next with both thumbs and a Vandyke beard." Still, through his self-disgust, a sensation of respect for the canvas at which he was scowling, persisted.

Nor could he account for the perfectly unwelcome and involuntary idea that there was, about the half-finished portrait, something almost dignified in the very candour of its painting.
John Burleson came striding in while he was still examining it.

He usually came about tea time, and the door was left open after five o'clock.
"O-ho!" he said in his big, unhumorous voice, "what in hell and the name of Jimmy Whistler have we here ?" "Mud," said Neville, shortly--"like Mr.Whistler's." "He was muddy--sometimes," said John, seriously, "but _you_ never were until this." "Oh, I know it, Johnny.

Something infected me.

I merely tried to do what isn't in me.