That very week young Bansted Downs commenced his studies under the Master Genius. He found he had a very great deal to learn. "The difference between talent and genius is that talent does what it can and genius does what it must--you will find that in the poets," said the Master Genius. "Consequently, to be a genius, you need not feel that you have the _ability_ to do a thing, but only that it is _necessary_ to do it. A house-painter is a specimen of genius: he has not the ability to do his work; but he is compelled to do it in order to obtain the means for his Saturday drinks. But, of course, that's only one kind of genius. What we have to teach you first is to feel that you _must_ do something transcendent--and then all you've got to do is to do it--see?" So, acting on his instructions, young Bansted Downs went to the office and sat quite still day after day for a month or two, with his eyes fixed on space; and one afternoon at the end of that time he got up and rushed at Power junior (who took charge of him in these preliminary studies), and announced that he felt the irresistible impulse to do something great and wonderful. "What sort of thing?" asked the Junior Genius. "I don't know--anything--something stupendous and transcendent--a master-piece!" said young Bansted Downs. "Knock it off, then. Don't make a labour of it, mind; that would spoil all the genius of it. Just knock it off--shed it--see?" The apprentice went back to his stool in the corner and knocked off that scintillation of genius. "Very good for a beginner," said the Junior Genius; "you show much promise. I shall soon be able to hand you over to my father for the Higher Grades." And some time after that young Bansted Downs moved into the room of the Master Genius to learn the higher attributes of genius--eccentricity and obscureness. These were the most important parts of the qualifications, and he worked hard at acquiring them. The eccentricity had infinite ramifications extending into language, manner, dress, habits, appearance, and opinions. The teacher communicated a thousand little touches of eccentricity invaluable to a genius--such as the bringing out of a book of poems with the title printed upside down and the capitals at the end of the lines instead of the beginning; the wearing of the back hair tied in a bow under the tip of the nose, and so forth. The pupil learned to hop backwards on to a public platform, wearing his dress-coat upside down, to paint his figures with their bones outside their skin, to sob audibly when performing on the piano; and many other things necessary to the obtaining of his degrees. [Illustration: "A HOUSE-PAINTER IS A SPECIMEN OF GENIUS."] Having completed these studies, he was ready for the uphill work of trying to Make his Mark; and he found it a complicated bit of drawing too, far worse than the signature of a Chinese emperor--everything lay in the flourish.