"Are you newly married, you two?" asked the Columbine, slily. "Oh, you need not blush! She puts us all in the shade. You are in love with her, at least? Well, she scorns us and is not clever at concealing it: but I will not revenge myself by trying to steal you away. I am magnanimous, for my part; and, moreover, all women love a lover." CHAPTER XXIX. VENDETTA. "Have ye not seyn som tyme a pale face Among a prees, of him that hath be lad Toward his death, wher-as him gat no grace, And swich a colour in his face hath had, Men mighte knowe his face that was bistad, Amonges alle the faces in that route." CHAUCER. _Man of Lawe's Tale_. "Criticism," said Mr. Fett, with his mouth full of sausage, "is the flower of all the arts." "For my part, I hate it," put in the melancholy Rinaldo. "To be sure," Mr. Fett conceded, "if all men grasped this great truth, there would be an end of artists; and in time, by consequence, of critics, who live by them and for whom they exist. Therefore I keep my discovery as a Platonic secret, and utter it but occasionally, in my cups, and when"--with a severe glance at Mr. Badcock--"the vulgar are not attending." Mr. Badcock woke up at once. "On the contrary," he explained, "I listen best with my eyes closed; a habit I acquired in Axminster Parish Church. Indeed, I am all ears." "Indeed you are. . . . Well then, as I was about to say, the secret of success in the Arts is to make other men do the work for you. At this obviously he will excel who has learnt to appraise other men's work, and knows exactly of what they are capable; that is to say, the Critic. Believe me, dear friends, the happiest moment of my life will come when, as _impresario_ I shall have realized the ambition of giving myself, as _capo comico_, the sack at twenty-four hours' notice." "A man should know his own worth," grumbled Rinaldo, "if only in self-defence on pay-day." "'Tis notorious, my dear Rinaldo, that your mere artist never does. Intent upon expressing self, he misses the detachment which alone is Olympian; whereas the critic--Tell me, why is an architect architectonic? Because he sits in his parlour, pushing the brown sherry and chatting with his clients, while his clerks express their souls for him in a back office. This lesson, O Badcocchio, I learnt from an uncle of mine, who had amassed a tidy competence by thus vicariously erecting a quite incredible number of villa residences for retired tradesmen in the midlands--to be precise, in and around Wolverhampton. I say vicariously, for on his deathbed it brought him inexpressible comfort that he himself had not designed these things.