P. G. Wodehouse

“ Life had sharpened his powers of judgment. He was a grown man looking at the follies of his youth.
"Burn them!" said Mr. Penway, lighting a cigar with the air of one restoring his tissues after a strenuous ordeal. "Burn the lot. They're awful. Darned amateur nightmares. They offend the eye. Cast them into a burning fiery furnace."
Kirk nodded. The criticism was just. It erred, if at all, on the side of mildness. Certainly something had happened to him since he perpetrated those daubs. He had developed. He saw things with new eyes. ”

“ He could teach to perfection what he was too erratic to practise.
Robert Dwight Penway, run to earth one sultry evening in the Brevoort, welcomed Kirk as a brother, as a rich brother. Even when his first impression, that he was to have the run of the house on Fifth Avenue and mix freely with touchable multi-millionaires, had been corrected, his altitude was still brotherly. He parted from Kirk with many solemn promises to present himself at the studio daily and teach him enough art to put him clear at the top of the profession. ”

“ I am married to the woman I wanted to marry. I have a son who, not to be fulsome, is a perfectly good sort of son. I have no financial troubles. I eat well. I have ceased to tremble when I see a job of work. In fact, I have advanced in my art to such an extent that shrewd business men like Middleton put the pictorial side of their Undeniable Suspenders in my hands and go off to play golf with their minds easy, having perfect confidence in my skill and judgment. If I can't be merry and bright, who can? Do you find me merry and bright, Steve? ”

“ What about Miss Ruth?"
"Well, you know just what's the matter with her. She's let this society game run away with her. I guess she started it because she felt lonesome when you were away; and now it's got her and she can't drop it. All she wants is a jolt. It would slow her up and show her just where she was. She's asking for it. One good, snappy jolt would put the whole thing right. And this thing of jerking the kid away to Connecticut would be the right dope, believe me."
Kirk shook his head.
"It wouldn't do, Steve. It isn't that I don't want to do it; but one must play to the rules. ”

“ He would engage a good teacher, some competent artist whom fortune had not treated well and who would be glad of the job—Washington Square and its neighbourhood were full of them—and settle down grimly, working regular hours, to recover lost ground. ”

“ That kid would have the time of his life there."
"You think that's the solution, do you, Steve?"
"I'm dead sure it is." Steve's voice became more and more enthusiastic as the idea unfolded itself. "Why, it ain't only the kid I'm thinking of. There's Miss Ruth. ”

“ I pay a state visit every day. Think of that! I sit in a chair at the other end of the room while Mrs. Porter stands between to see that I don't start anything. Bill plays with his sterilized bricks. Occasionally he and I exchange a few civil words. ”