"What is it, dear?" the man asked of her, tenderly. The woman's frame shook under her sobs. "You don't respect me," she wailed. "Because if you did, you'd marry me." XXI TEMPERAMENT The rage of the artiste knew no bounds. That she should be thus annoyed just before her appearance in the great scene! She stamped about her dressing-room; she threw her arms heavenward; she brushed the vase of roses from her table; she slapped her maid for venturing at such a moment to speak to her; she sank exhausted into an armchair, a bottle of salts pressed to her nostril. It was full fifteen minutes before she recovered. Then she went out upon the stage and began her famous interpretation of the great scene in which she chloroforms the detective, breaks open the safe, shoots the policeman who attempts to handcuff her, smashes the glass in the window with the piano stool and makes her getaway by sliding down the railing of the fire-escape. XXII IMMORTALITY The little son of the reverend man of God stood at his father's knee and bade him speak to him of immortality. And the reverend man of God, his father, spoke to him of immortality, eloquently, impressively, convincingly. But what he spoke to him of immortality we need not here repeat, for the while he spoke out of the romantic eloquence of his heart, his matter-of-fact mind kept incorrigibly whispering to him that immortality is the theory that life is a rough ocean voyage and the soul a club breakfast. XXIII INSPIRATION A poet, searching for Inspiration, looked into the hearts of all the women he knew. But all the hearts of these were empty and he found it not. And then, presently, in the heart of one woman whom he had forgotten, at the edge of a deep forest, he found what he sought for. For the heart of this woman was full. And as he looked at this heart, it seemed to him strangely familiar, as if, long ago, he had seen it before. And as he looked, the truth dawned fair upon him. The heart was his own. XXIV RECIPE A young fellow, with something of the climber to him, took himself to the arbiter of manners and urged the latter instruct him how best he might learn effectively to pass himself off for a gentleman. "Practise insulting persons in such wise that they shall not feel insulted," the arbiter of manners advised him. XXV TRANSMIGRATION A great love faded and died. Its soul passed into the body of a cobra. XXVI THE SAVANT There lived in Boeotia a lout who was even more empty-headed than his most empty-headed neighbour and who yet, throughout the domain, was looked on as a shrewd and wise and sapient fellow. Whenever any one spoke to him of a thing he did not understand, he vouchsafed no reply, but merely smiled a bit, and winked. XXVII COMPANION Modesty left his mistress to fare forth into the world alone. But, turning in his flight, he saw someone at his heels.