"Something in the style of the Dying Gladiator?" he sympathetically
observed.
"Oh no," said Roderick seriously, "he 's not dying, he 's only drunk!"
"Ah, but intoxication, you know," Mr. Leavenworth rejoined, "is not a
proper subject for sculpture. Sculpture should not deal with transitory
attitudes."
"Lying dead drunk is not a transitory attitude! Nothing is more
permanent, more sculpturesque, more monumental!"
"An entertaining paradox," said Mr. Leavenworth, "if we had time to
exercise our wits upon it. I remember at Florence an intoxicated figure
by Michael Angelo which seemed to me a deplorable aberration of a
great mind. I myself touch liquor in no shape whatever. I have traveled
through Europe on cold water. The most varied and attractive lists of
wines are offered me, but I brush them aside. No cork has ever been
drawn at my command!"
"The movement of drawing a cork calls into play a very pretty set
of muscles," said Roderick. "I think I will make a figure in that
position."
"A Bacchus, realistically treated! My dear young friend, never trifle
with your lofty mission.
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