Rudyard Kipling 47 They wanted something more restful, with a little more color. I could have said a good deal, but you might as well talk to a sheep as an art-manager. I took my ‘Last Shot’ back. Behold the result! I put him into a lovely red coat without a speck on it. That is Art. I polished his boots, — observe the high light on the toe. That is Art. I cleaned his rifle, — rifles are always clean on service, — because that is Art. I pipe clayed his helmet, — pipe clay is always used on active service, and is indispensable to Art. I shaved his chin, I washed his hands, and gave him an air of fatted peace. Result, military tailor’s pattern-plate. Price, thank Heaven, twice as much as for the first sketch, which was moderately decent.” “And do you suppose you're going to give that thing out as your work?” “Why not? I did it. Alone I did it, in the interests of sacred, home-bred Art and Dickenson’s Weekly.” Torpenhow smoked in silence for a while. Then came the verdict, delivered from rolling clouds: “If you were only a mass of blathering vanity, Dick, I wouldn’t mind, — I’d let you go to the deuce on your own mahl-stick; but when I consider what you are to me, and when I find that to vanity you add the two pennyhalfpenny pique of a twelve-year-old girl, then I bestir myself in your behalf. Thus!” The canvas ripped as Torpenhow’s booted foot shot through it, and the terrier jumped down, thinking rats were about. “If you have any bad language to use, use it. You have not. I continue. You are an idiot, because no man born of woman is strong enough to take liberties with his public, even though they be — which they ain’t — all you say they are.” “But they don’t know any better. What can you expect from creatures born and bred in this light?”