he was watched or not, told me in a low voice to leave the café at once, and to wait for him at the corner of the street, where he would join me in half an hour. I did as he told me, but while I stood at the corner waiting for him I could hardly get over my surprise. The whole thing seemed to be a dream. I doubted whether I had really seen my brother, and whether it was true that he was only a waiter and not an artist, as I had firmly believed him to be. When the half-hour was over a young man dressed in the height of fashion came up to me. I felt a new surprise; the smart young man was my brother. I thought that he had his day off, and admired the cut and colour of his suit. "Do you get tipped so well?" I, pursuing my own thoughts, asked him after we had shaken hands. "Incredible!" he cried scornfully. "How can you be so utterly tactless as to remind me in such a manner of the miserable profession I am in?" "Why do you call it a miserable profession?" "Why do I call it a miserable profession?" he repeated very angrily. "Do you really think that I find a great pleasure in hobbling round fellows who are not fit to hold a candle to me?" "I thought," I remarked, after a little silence, "that you had become an artist." He laughed so terribly that all the passers-by stopped and looked at us. "An artist, indeed! That is more than I have ever expected from you. Do you believe that artists drop from heaven during the night?" "Oh no," I replied hurriedly, in order to appease his temper; "I quite know that it takes many years sometimes before they make a name for themselves." "Then, if you know it, why do you demand that I should be an artist, when there was never the slightest chance for me to educate myself?" "No, of course not. What I thought was that by now you might have found out which of your capacities is the most eminent." "Oh," he answered, with an air of absolute ease and conviction, "there can be little doubt as to the nature of my abilities. It is quite certain that I should have made an excellent painter if I had ever had the chance to learn the different ways of mixing the colours and using the brush; it is also quite certain that I should have become a great composer if I had been able to study music; and it is also beyond all doubt that I should be a pioneer in the field of literature if my profession permitted the depth of thought and feeling that is necessary to write in grand style." I thought of my own poems, and could not understand him. "Why can't you feel and think exactly as other people do?" I asked. "Lord!" he cried, and laughed again as terribly as before, "how can you imagine such a thing? To be locked in between four walls, to have to carry trays, and to bow and scrape all day long! Can't you understand that by leading such a miserable life as mine, the soul degenerates, the brain decays, and the whole being goes down to the level of a working animal?"