"An artist isn't a conjurer!" said Mendel.
"That is just what artists have been," cried Logan, "and they can't bluff it out any more."
"Exactly!" gurgled Tysoe, who when he was roused from his habitual weak lethargy lost control of his voice, so that it wobbled between a shrill treble and a husky bass. "Exactly! That's what I like about you two. No bluff, no tricks. You do what you want to do and damn the consequences. Ha! ha!"
So ill was Mendel just before the exhibition that Logan refused to allow him anywhere near it, and insisted that they should both go to Brighton, leaving Oliver to go to the private view and spy out the land.
Oliver protested. She wanted to go to Brighton.
"You shall have a new dress and a new hat," said Logan. "You must go to the private view like a real lady. Cluny doesn't know you, and you must go up to him every now and then and ask him in a loud voice what the prices are. You might even pretend to be a little deaf and make him speak clearly and distinctly."
The idea tickled Mendel so that he began to laugh, could not stop himself, and was soon almost hysterical.
"What's the matter with you?" asked Oliver, shaking him.
"I--I was laughing at the idea of your being a real lady. Ha! ha! ha!"
She gave him a clout over the head that sobered him. Logan pounced on her like a tiger.
"You devil!" he said. "You she-devil! Don't you see the poor boy's ill?"
"What's that to me?" she screamed, with her head wobbling backwards and forwards horribly as he shook her. "It's n-nothing t-to m-me!"
She caught Logan by the wrist and sent him spinning, for she was nearly as strong as he.
"Go to Brighton!" she shouted. "I don't care. I'll be glad to be rid of you both. You won't find me here when you come back, that's all, you and your little hurdy-gurdy boy! You only need a monkey and an organ to make you complete. Why don't you try it? You'd do better at that than out of pictures."
Logan could not contain himself. His rage burst out of him in a howl like that of a wind in a chimney, a dismal, empty moan. He stood up, and the veins on his neck swelled and his mouth opened and shut foolishly, for he could find nothing to say.
"You slut, you squeezed-out dishclout, you sponge!" he roared at last. "Clear out, you drab! Clear out into the streets, you trull! Draggle your skirts in the mud, you filth, you octopus! Sell the carcase that you don't know how to give, you marble!"