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THE STONE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS
85

Dear old chap! responded Basil, with a warm pressure of the hand. Open the whisky, and you'll feel better!

Which being gone about, the irrepressible doctor broke in with a story of his youth.

I will never assent to murder, said he. It's inartistic. I dined forty years ago in the Apennines with an Italian Prince, and he entirely converted me. I put down his words in verse. They are being published by the Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment. If a supreme aesthete like the Prince botches it (this is their idea) how much more must we detest the crude melodramas of the Law! The proceeds are to be devoted to the artistic education of the Common Hangman—as a palliative measure.

Wiertz and Beardsley, Sime and O'Sullivan? suggested the Scholar, separating his fingers widely to illustrate his "Three fingers only, please!" to their host.

Now, doctor, said Basil, your Italian Prince!


THE DISAPPOINTED ARTIST

Shall we sit here? A lovely night!—
What you were saying, though, is right:
Man scorns repulsion and attraction;
Woman is wholly reflex action.—
I'll tell you of a splendid joke
I had once. Have another smoke?
No? Well. I wanted to determine
Rightly the nature of the vermin.
(A pity scientific study
Makes the hands poisonous and bloody!)

You see yon finger chaste and cool
That moonlight flings across the pool?

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