46 The Light That Failed was a regular Christmas-tree of contraptions when he took the field in full fig, with his water-bottle, lanyard, revolver, writing-case, housewife, gig-lamps, and the Lord knows what all. He used to fiddle about with *em and show us how they worked; but he never seemed to do much except fudge his reports from the Nilghai. See?” “Dear old Nilghai! He’s in town, fatter than ever. He ought to be up here this evening. I see the comparison perfectly. You should have kept clear of all that manmillinery. Serves you right; and I hope it will unsettle your mind.” “It won’t. It has taught me what Art — holy sacred Art — means.” “You've learnt something while I’ve been away. What is Art?” “Give em what they know, and when you've done it once do it again.” Dick dragged forward a canvas laid face to the wall. “Here’s a sample of real Art. It’s going to be a facsimile reproduction for a weekly. | called it “His Last Shot.’ It’s worked up from the little water-color I made outside El Maghrib. Well, I lured my model, a beautiful rifleman, up here with drink; I drored him, and I redrored him, and [| redrored him, and I made him a flushed, disheveled, bedeviled scalawag, with his helmet at the back of his head, and the living fear of death in his eye, and the blood oozing out of a cut over his ankle-bone. He wasn’t pretty, but he was all soldier and very much man.” “Once more, modest child!” Dick laughed. “Well, it’s only to you I’m talking. I did him just as well as I knew how, making allowance for the slickness of oils. Then the art-manager of that abandoned paper said that his subscribers wouldn’t like it. It was brutal and coarse and violent, — man being naturally gentle when he’s fighting for his life.