"You're getting material to write about. Think what a story's here for you one day, when you look back. You'll smile then." Gradually John's mood of desperation passed. The problems of life was yet to be solved or attempted, but he was young. He had intense ambition, good health, friends, and certain qualities which secured him notice. He became aware that he possessed what men call a personality; there was something that made persons ready to do him a service, and this asset was the latest of his discoveries. At the Vicarage, Miss Piggin had proved her friendship. She left him books; she knew something about art, having spent two terms at Newlyn; at least she knew the various schools of art, the names of the galleries in London, and the queer methods employed for achieving success. For the first time he heard of the Vorticiste and the mad young men of the Backyard Gallery, which specialised in chimneyscapes and exalted the hideous. She told him of energetic young James Squilson, one part artist, and two parts publicist, the one part being good, the others impudent. The good was at present carefully hidden, while his monstrosities had created sufficient of an outcry to make those beardless Jews, Messrs. Riverton, give him a one-man show at the Trafford Galleries. This exhibition, Miss Piggin said, was a great success. Society flocked to it and declared it unique. It bought enigmatical canvases at fifty guineas each, which were cheap, considering they were fashionable and provocative of discussions at dinner parties. Major Slade, a charming man, who liked having artists to dinner, bought several and felt like a connoisseur for six months, which was as long as he liked any sensation. Squilson's third exhibition cooled Slade's waning enthusiasm. The perverse fellow had become an artist. His paintings might have been accepted by the Royal Academy. When Squilson declared, to the horror of society, that he would not object to being accepted, Slade dropped him and gave away his works as wedding presents. Miss Piggin was musical also; she played Bach and cultivated an enthusiasm for Scriabine. John found that his musical intelligence ceased after Debussy--Ravel was his breaking point, although Stravinsky's _L'oiseau de Feu_ seemed to give him a prospect of a new land where the animals were articulate.