And when the old man had done with these foolish words he suddenly seized the rose upon his coat and tore it off and cast it from him. Then he picked up his tattered goose quill pen and dipped it in a pool and began to write furiously. When the old man paused and stared up vacantly, Gud spoke to him and asked: "What are you writing?" Thereupon the old man made answer and said to Gud: "I am writing a cook book for cannibals." Being a vegetarian in theory if not in practice, Gud was not interested, and he passed on, walking rapidly, so that he presently overtook a man who was following stealthily after yet another man. He who followed stooped frequently and, with a two-pronged instrument, picked up objects from the pavement. These he cast into a brazier that he carried, wherein that which he picked up sizzled and burned and made a stench in its burning. Gud wot not what the man did and would know, so he plucked at the sleeve of yet another citizen of that place and asked of him: "Who be these two, the one that walks alone with his face aloft, and the other that follows after, stooping and searching for filth?" Said the citizen: "These be our Genius and our Critic." "And what do they?" asked Gud. To this the citizen replied: "The Genius talks words, and the Critic follows after, and, as the words fall from the lips of Genius, the Critic picks them up with the tongs of contempt and burns them in the brazier of public opinion." "But why," asked Gud, "do the words of the Genius make a stench in their burning?" "Because," said the citizen, "they are vile." Gud doubted that which the citizen told him, and he quickened his steps and made bold to pass close to the Critic. Whereupon Gud, who could see all things, saw that the words of the Genius which the Critic picked up were not vile but beautiful; and that, when the Critic made a pass toward the brazier, he put the word not therein but dropped it instead into a wallet which he carried beneath his mantle. Gud was angered and he grasped the fellow by his egotism and shook him until his conceit rattled and made inferential allegations of hypocrisy. "What is it to you," demanded the Critic, "if I spit into the brazier to make a stench to please the people?" "But what do you with the words of Genius?" "By the holy name of Public Opinion! Why should a man do the work of a street cleaner on the salary of a critic?" "I have been a public official myself," replied Gud sympathetically, "and I know how ill such service is paid." This pleased the Critic and he turned and looked into Gud's face and saw there the satisfied look of self-sufficient authority which he recognized as akin to his own. Plucking confidentially at Gud's sleeve he said: "As you appreciate that I must live by subtle ways, then perhaps I can interest you in a few choice verbal gems."