He would not go. He would refuse to go. These Birnbaums and Fleischmanns had had their way with him for long enough. So lost was he in this growing revolt that he was already some distance away from Sir William's studio before he was aware of having left it. "Our greatest painter," said Maurice. "The greatest since Whistler." "Yes," said Mendel, aghast at the supersession of Calthrop and the idols of the Detmold. If Maurice could be so ignorant there was nothing to be said and argument was vain. "He really appreciated your work," Maurice added. "He never looked at it!" cried Mendel, enraged. "I put them in front of him one by one, but he always looked at the fat lady in blue." "He could tell with one glance," protested Maurice, who had been mightily impressed. Mendel saw that it was useless to talk, and shut his lips tight while Maurice chattered to him of his extraordinary good fortune in being able to go to Italy, to live among the orange groves and with the greatest galleries of the world to roam in, the most beautiful scenery and the most delightful food. The mention of food made Mendel think of his mother's unsavoury dishes and sluttish table, the most distasteful feature of his existence, but he preferred even that to the Italy of Maurice Birnbaum and Sir William. Through such people, he knew, lay nothing that he could ever desire. As soon as he reached home he told his mother that they wanted to send him abroad to study. He strode about the kitchen and waved his arms, growling:-- "Study? Study? I want to be an artist, not a student. I _am_ an artist. I know art students when I see them--the Academy, South Kensington, the Detmold--they are all the same. Let them go abroad and never come back. No one will miss them, not even their fathers and mothers, if they have anything so natural. I will not go--I will not go!" "But if the Maurice Birnbaum thinks you must go, then you must," said Golda. "It is their money that has been spent on you." "They've spent enough," cried Mendel, "without that. I don't want their money any more. They know that. They want to keep me in their hands and to say that they made me. They? People like that! God made me, and they want to keep me all my life saying how grateful I am to them. Grateful? I am not." "But you could go for a little while." "I will not go at all." He sat down and wrote to Maurice Birnbaum saying that he would not go to Italy, that he did not want any more of his commissions, and that he would not be interfered with any more. He would shortly repay every penny he had had, and he asked only to be allowed to know best what he wanted to do. "Everything that I love is here in London, and I can only learn from what I love. I am one kind of artist and you want to turn me into another kind. You will only waste your money, and I will not let you do it." Maurice never answered this letter and patronage and that of his friends was withdrawn.