Toward the middle of the summer, the tension became too great. Precious as time was, with that ironclad contract haunting my dreams, I saw that perhaps I should gain, in the end, if I should leave my studio, for a double-size week-end, and go a-fishing from Friday to the following Tuesday. I was working in plastiline instead of clay, and I could safely leave my angels, without fear of their drying up on me as soon as my back was turned. The holiday might not hurt the boys, either. Apollos had stuck valiantly to his “_pis-aller_” job; perhaps Phineas would do better after a few days’ change; at any rate, I told myself, he couldn’t do worse. In that, however, I was mistaken. II By Thursday midnight, my motor had already borne me north two hundred miles from my studio and all its works. Some men sit by a brookside to think, but I go fishing to forget. I wanted an oblivious antidote against art and angels in art. But my respite was brief. Sunday night, on returning to the mountain inn at the head of the lake, carrying with me a gorgeous string of trout that I knew would win me the plaudits of all guests at Monday’s breakfast, I was confronted with a telegram. Studio destroyed. Come as soon as you can. PHINEAS STICKNEY For a second, I had an hallucination; I saw also the words, “Angels in ashes. Contract ironclad.” But I waved that aside; and, I hardly know why, my utter dismay was soon followed by a sort of exhilaration, the exhilaration a fellow feels when he suddenly has to make a fresh start, and knows he has strength for it. No Sunday trains served those remote God-fearing parts; I must return as I came. A few years before, my hill and home had been struck by lightning, but no damage had been done, except to a drinking-glass and the cook’s Thursday afternoon corsets. Turning my motor’s nose homeward, I wondered whether the lightning had returned to finish a work thus timidly begun. More likely fire, though! Did Apollos smoke, after all? Or Phineas? My curiosity was almost equal to my consternation. All night long, my runabout raced up hill and down dale, sometimes beside a moonlit brook, sometimes through clean, sweet forests, and again along dusty country roads with straggling farmhouses fast asleep, not even giving a dream to _my_ troubles! Grateful guests at the inn had pressed upon me loaves in exchange for my fishes, and by way of a solitary breakfast among the morning mists, I disposed of an incredible number of sandwiches as well as all the hot coffee in my own miracle-bottle. I propitiated my engine for the last lap.