"Your c-coffee, Mr. Jimson."

"Mr. jimson has just gone out. He must have seen you coming."

But the boy switched on his bicycle lamp; and came right in and put the coffee in my hand.

"Mr. Jimson won't be back for some time," I said. "But he asked me to tell you that you haven't got a chance. He isn't going to talk to you about art. He's committed arson, adultery, murder, libel, malfeasance of club monies, and assault with battery, but he doesn't want to have any serious crime on his conscience."

"B-but, Mr. Jimson, I w-want to be an artist."

"Of course you do," I said, "everybody does once. But they get over it, thank God, like the measles and the chickenpox. Go home and go to bed and take some hot lemonade and put on three blankets and sweat it out."

"But Mr. J-Jimson, there must be artists."

"Yes, and lunatics and lepers, but why go and live in an asylum before you're sent for? If you find life a bit dull at home," I said, "and want to amuse yourself, put a stick of dynamite in the kitchen fire, or shoot a policeman. Volunteer for a test pilot, or dive off Tower Bridge with five bob's worth of roman candles in each pocket. You'd get twice the fun at about one-tenth of the risk."

I could see the boy's eyes bulging in the reflected light off the boards, the color of dirty water. And I thought, I've made an effect. "Now go away," I said. "It's bedtime. Shoo."

- from The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary