Except that--ah, yes--I forgot--I had a return upon myself this spring--and set to work on some Bacchantes.' He stopped, and picked up a canvas which was standing with its face to the wall.
It represented a dance of Bacchantes.

Fenwick looked at it in silence.
Watson replaced it with a patient sigh.

'Theophile Gautier said of some other fellow's Bacchantes that they had got drunk on "philosophical" wine.

He might, I fear, have said it of mine.

Anyway, I felt I was not made for Bacchantes--so I fell back on the usual thing.' And he showed an 'Execution of a Witch'-- filled with gruesome and poignant detail--excellent in some of its ideas and single figures, but as a whole crude, horrible, and weak.
'I don't improve,' he said, abruptly, turning away--'but it keeps me contented--that and my animals.