But in this situation Roderick talked so much amusing nonsense that, for the sake of his company, Rowland consented to be uncomfortable, and often forgot that, though in these diversions the days passed quickly, they brought forth neither high art nor low.

And yet it was perhaps by their help, after all, that Roderick secured several mornings of ardent work on his new figure, and brought it to rapid completion.

One afternoon, when it was finished, Rowland went to look at it, and Roderick asked him for his opinion.
"What do you think yourself ?" Rowland demanded, not from pusillanimity, but from real uncertainty.
"I think it is curiously bad," Roderick answered.

"It was bad from the first; it has fundamental vices.

I have shuffled them in a measure out of sight, but I have not corrected them.