"I am making this experiment on your vile body, my little Asticot," said he, "to prove my Theory of Education. You have had, so far as it goes, what is called an excellent Board School Training. You can read and write and multiply sixty-four by thirty-seven in your head, and you can repeat the Kings of England. If you had been fortunate and gone to a Public school they would have stuffed your brain full of Greek verbs and damned facts about triangles. But of the meaning of life, the value of life, the art of life, you would never have had a glimmering perception. I am going to educate you, my little Asticot, through the imagination. The intellect can look after itself. We will go now to the National Gallery." He caught up his hat and threw me my cap, and we went out. He had a sudden, breathless way of doing things. I am sure thirty seconds had not elapsed between the idea of the National Gallery entering his head and our finding ourselves on the stairs. We went to the National Gallery. I came away with a reeling undistinguishable mass of form and colour before my eyes. I felt sick. Only one single picture stood out clear. Paragot talked Italian art to my uncomprehending ears all the way home. "Now," said he, when he had settled himself comfortably in his old wicker-work chair again, "which of the pictures did you like best?" Why that particular picture (save that it is the supreme art of a supreme genius) should have alone fixed itself on my mind, I do not know. It has been one of the psychological puzzles of my life. "A man's head, master," said I; "I can't describe it, but I think I could draw it." "Draw it?" he echoed incredulously. "Yes, Master." He pulled a stump of pencil from his pocket and threw it to me. I felt luminously certain I could draw the head. A curious exaltation filled me as I sat at a corner of the table before a flattened-out piece of paper that had wrapped up tea. Paragot stood over me, as I drew. "_Nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu!_" cried he. "It is Gian Bellini's Doge Loredano. But what made you remember that picture, and how in the name of Board schools could you manage to draw it?" He walked swiftly up and down the room. "_Nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu!_" "I used to draw horses and men on my slate at school," said I modestly. Paragot filled his porcelain pipe and walked about strangely excited. Suddenly he stopped. "My little Asticot," said he, "you had better go down and help Mrs. Housekeeper to wash up the dirty plates and dishes, for your soul's sake." What my soul had to do with greasy crockery I could not in the least fathom; but the next morning Paragot gave me a drawing lesson. It would be false modesty for me to say that I did not show talent, since the making of pictures is the means whereby I earn my living at the present moment. The gift once discovered, I exercised it in and out of season.