"These people will never understand," he said, after a momentary pause, addressing the gentleman with the Jovian coiffure, and indicating the remains of the prosperous gentleman by a wave of a large white hand. "Why do you argue? Art is ever for the few." "I did not argue," said the gentleman with the hair. "I was interrupted." The owner of the watch-chain, who had been sitting struggling with his breath, now began to sob out his indignation. "What do you _mean_, sir? Saying _Bah_! sir, when I am talking----" The gentleman with the large face held up a soothing hand. "Peace, peace," he said. "I did not interrupt you. I annihilated you. Why did you presume to talk to artists about art? Go away, or I shall have to say Bah! again. Go and have a fit. Leave us--two rare souls who may not meet again--to our talking." "Did you ever see such abominable _rudeness_, sir?" said the gentleman with the watch-chain, appealing to me. There were tears in his eyes. At the same time the young man with the aureole made some remark to the corpulent gentleman that I failed to catch. "These artists," said I, "are unaccountable, irresponsible. You must----" "Take it from whence it comes," said the insulted one, very loudly, and bitterly glaring at his opponent. But the two artists were conversing serenely. I felt the undignified quality of our conversation. "Have you seen _Punch_?" said I, thrusting it into his hand. He looked at the paper for a moment in a puzzled way; then understood, thanked me, and began to read with a thunderous scowl, every now and then shooting murderous glances at his antagonist in the opposite corner, or coughing in an aggressive manner. "You do your best," the gentleman with the long hair was saying; "and they say, 'What is it for?' 'It is for itself,' you say. Like the stars." "But these people," said the stout gentleman, "think the stars were made to set their clocks by. They lack the magnanimity to drop the personal reference. A friend, a _confrère_, saw a party of these horrible Extension people at Rome before that exquisite Venus of Titian. 'And now, Mr Something-or-other,' said one of the young ladies, addressing the pedagogue in command, 'what is _this_ to teach us?'" "I have had the same experience," said the young gentleman with the hair. "A man sent to me only a week ago to ask what my sonnet 'The Scarlet Thread' _meant_?" The stout person shook his head as though such things passed all belief. "Gur-r-r-r," said the gentleman with _Punch_, and scraped with his foot on the floor of the carriage. "I gave him answer," said the poet, "'Twas a sonnet; not a symbol." "Precisely," said the stout gentleman. "'Tis the fate of all art to be misunderstood. I am always grossly misunderstood--by every one. They call me fantastic, whereas I am but inevitably new; indecent, because I am unfettered by mere trivial personal restrictions; unwholesome."