"Look here, Quell!" Arved exclaimed crustily, "you said I had crazy blue
eyes. What about your own red ones? Crazy! Why, they glow now like a
rat's. Poets may be music-mad, drunk with tone--"
"And other things," sneered the painter.
"--but at least their work is great when it endures; it does not fade
away on rotten canvas."
"Now, I know you ought to be in the Brain-College, Arved, where your
friends could take the little green car that goes by the grounds and see
you on Sunday afternoons if weather permits."
His accent seemed deliberately insulting to Arved, who, however, let it
pass because of their mutual plight. If they fell to fighting, detection
would ensue. So he answered in placatory phrases:--
"Yes, my friend, we both belong to the same establishment, for we are
men of genius. As the cat said to Alice, 'We must be mad or else we
shouldn't be here.' I started to tell you why my people thought I had
better take the cure. I loved the moon too much and loathed sunlight. If
I had never tried to write lunar poetry--the tone quality of music
combined with the pictorial evocation of painting--I might be in the
bosom of my family now instead of--"
"Drinking with a crazy painter, eh?" Quell was very angry.
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