There he was, self-exaggeratingly true to life, inordinately high, inordinately thin, clad in tights that reached to a waistband beneath his armpits giving him miraculous length of leg, a low-cut collar accentuating his length of neck, his hair twisted up on end to a fine point. "And I could pad the feet of the tights and wear high heels that would give me another couple of inches," he cried excitedly. "By Gum!" said he, clutching Bakkus's shoulder, a rare act of demonstrativeness, "what a thing it is to have imagination." "Ah!" said Bakkus, "what a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!" "What the devil do you mean?" asked Andrew. Bakkus waved a hand towards the drawing. "If only I had your application," said he, "I should make a great name as an illustrator of Hamlet." "One of these days," said Andrew, the frown of anger returning to his brow, "I'll throw you out of the window." "Provided it is not, as now, on the ground floor, you would be committing an act of the loftiest altruism." Andrew returned to his forgotten breakfast, and poured out a cup of tepid tea. "What would you suggest--just plain black or red--Mephisto--or stripes?" He was full of the realization of the Elodesque idea. His brain became a gushing fount of inspiration. Hundreds of grotesque possibilities of business, hitherto rendered ineffective by flapping costume, appeared in fascinating bubbles. He thought and spoke of nothing else. "Once I denied you the rank of artist," said Bakkus. "I retract. I apologize. No one but an artist would inflict on another human being such intolerable boredom." "But it's your idea, bless you, which I'm carrying out, with all the gratitude in the world." "If you want to reap the tortures of the damned," retorted Bakkus, "just you be a benefactor." Andrew shrugged his shoulders. That was the way of Horatio Bakkus, perhaps the first of his fellow-creatures whom he had deliberately set out to study, for hitherto he had met only simple folk, good men and true or uncomplicated fools and knaves, and the paradoxical humour of his friend had been a puzzling novelty demanding comprehension; the first, therefore, who put him on the track of the observation of the twists of human character and the knowledge of men. That was the way of Bakkus. An idea was but a toy which he tired of like a child and impatiently broke to bits. Only a week before he had come to Andrew: "My dear fellow, I've got a song. I'm going to write it, set it and sing it myself. It begins:-- _I crept into the halls of sleep And watched the dreams go by._ I'll give you the accompaniment in a day or two and we'll try it on the dog. It's a damned sight too good for them--but no matter."