And the king, blinking and scowling, said after a bit: 

“It is a volcano!”

The chamberlain answered, “Wrong; it is an inkstand,” and showing it proved that he spoke truth.

Then he held another thing close before the eyes of another king and cried again, “What is this?”

And this king, puzzled, said, “I think it is a little piece of cloth.”

“Wrong,” said the sensible chamberlain.  “It is the statue of the Winged Victory.”

And this happened not once but many times until at length the kings understood.  And they made a law that no one should stand too close to the thing he wished to see clearly.  And they added their judgment that only the visitors to a country could see it as it is.

So the traveller dipped his quill in ink once more and started writing his book.  It is not yet known how successful he was.

Travellers make terrible errors, and yet at times they bring back fragments of truth that the natives of the land have left unheeded scattered on the soil of the countryside.  Sometimes their fragments prove to be useless and without value, for there are travellers and travellers, and some will be as stupid and as blind as the rest are clever.  If this book turns out to be written by one of the stupid travellers—­try to be generous, you Villagers—­but then the Village is always generous!

The studio life of Greenwich is really and truly as primitive, as picturesque, as poverty-stricken and as gaily adventurous as the story-tellers say.  People really do live in big, quaint, bare rooms with scarcely enough to buy the necessaries of life; and they are undoubtedly gay in the doing of it.  There is a sort of camaraderie among the “Bohemians” of the world below Fourteenth Street which the more restricted uptowners find it hard to believe in.  It is difficult for those uptowners to understand a condition of mind which makes it possible for a number of ambitious young people in a studio building to go fireless and supperless one day and feast gloriously the next; to share their rare windfalls without thought of obligation on any side; to burn candles instead of kerosene in order to dine at “Polly’s”; to borrow each other’s last pennies for books or pictures or drawing materials, knowing that they will all go without butter or milk for tomorrow’s breakfast.

If one is hard up, one expects to be offered a share in someone’s good fortune; if one has had luck oneself, one expects, as a matter of course, to share it.  Such is the code of the studios.

Anabel, for example, is sitting up typing her newest poem at 1 A.M. when a knock comes on the studio door.  She opens it to confront the man who lives on the top floor and whom she has never met.  She hasn’t the least idea what his name is.  He carries a tea caddy, a teapot and a teacup.

“Sorry,” he explains casually, “but I saw your light, and I thought you’d let me use your gas stove to make some tea.  Mine is out of commission.  Just go ahead with your work, while I fuss about.  Maybe you’d take a cup when it’s ready?”