“What are you going to do, then? Teach languages?” “I’ve tried that,” replied the best model I ever saw, “but I found it unsatisfactory. You see my mother was French, born in Strasbourg. So while she lived, we always spoke the three languages at home, meal-times; English for breakfast, German for dinner, and French for supper. Father liked it so, and we boys couldn’t look back on a time when it wasn’t so. I had the French conversation classes for two terms at the Elmdale High School, and I got on fine until one of the trustees wanted the job for his wife’s sister. So he went ahead and found out that I was a minor, and had me fired.” “What a shame!” “Why, no, it didn’t matter much. If I might rest this elbow just a moment, it seems a bit dead—I meant to quit, anyway. There was nothing in it for me, it wasn’t leading to anything I wanted.” “Well, what was it you wanted?” Apollos made no answer other than that slow blush of his, swarming all over his face and finally demobilizing in his ears. For a moment, his whole figure had an expression that would have been wistful in a smaller lad; even as it was, there was something very touching about it. I could only hope that his ambition, however humble, was at least honorable. I reminded myself that I must not expect, in a Canadian boy, the same lofty impulses that would quicken the blood of a Signer’s descendant. Meanwhile, my work with Phineas was going rather badly. I could not teach his aristocratic spirit to get down to brass tacks. His posing became worse instead of better. Before long, I found myself doing over again, every morning, from Apollos, all that I had bungled in doing, every afternoon, from Phineas. It occurred to me that perhaps I was too tired, in the afternoon, to do justice to Phineas, and that possibly Phineas’s pose was the more difficult one. However, when I changed about, things were still worse. I realized at last that my sprig of nobility was a hindrance rather than a help. What to do? I had promised him work through the summer. If I should pay him handsomely and discharge him, with his part of the bargain unfulfilled, I should write myself down an easy mark for models—a reputation no serious artist seeks. It would be complicity after the crime. Besides, Apollos might well become discontented, on beholding the rewards of the ungodly.