After a
while his prodigious acuteness struck me more than even his
histrionic powers, and I began to ask myself what Old Bailey
barrister it was.
Turning at last to the one called D'Arcy, I said. 'You are an artist;
you are a painter?'
'I have been trying for many years to paint,' he said.
'And you?' I said, turning to his companion.
'He is an artist too,' D'Arcy said, 'but his line is not painting--he
is an artist in words.'
'A poet?' I said in amazement.
'A romancer, the greatest one of his time unless it be old Dumas.'
'A novelist?'
'Yes, but he does not write his novels, he speaks them.'
De Castro, evidently with a desire to turn the conversation from
himself and his profession, said, pointing to D'Arcy, 'You see before
you the famous painter Haroun-al-Raschid, who has never been known to
perambulate the streets of London except by night, and in me you see
his faithful vizier.'
It soon became evident that D'Arcy, for some reason or other, had
thoroughly taken to me--more thoroughly, I thought, than De Castro
seemed to like, for whenever D'Arcy seemed to be on the verge of
asking me to call at his studio, De Castro would suddenly lead the
conversation off into another channel by means of some amusing
anecdote.
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