"YOU are the doctor, I suppose," said Augustus Poke whistle,
smiling from his bed at the immense man who had arrived secretly
 while he slept. "It is kind of you to come, but I don't think
 you can help me. However, as you are here, I will tell you what
is wrong with me. I am an artist. I paint pictures and I draw drawings..."
"But..."    
"You are going to tell me that you are not interested in the story
 of my life," Augustus laughed bitterly. "You are one of the uncaring public
, and it is of no importance to you if a clever young man should take to his
 bed at the height of his youth, never to rise again. But I suppose you have
been sent here by some interfering so-called friend of mine to save me
from my suffering, and I must therefore explain my illness. And you
cannot understand my illness unless I tell you the story of my life
"I was delicately brought up, and it soon became clear that I was not an
ordinary boy. At the age of seven I won a prize for a drawing of an animal.
 We will forget the fact that I had intended my drawing to represent sunset
 over London. After that my proud parents provided me with plenty of pencils
and paper and gave me the opportunity of studying under great painters.
At the age of twenty-one I started a business as a painter of people,
 and painted eleven pictures of my own face. Nobody seemed to want them,
 and if you go into my sitting room, you will see them hanging sadly on
the wall, looking down at the empty chair which I will never sit in again.
 For I am certain that I shall never rise from this bed..."
"Nobody came to have their pictures painted, and I had no desire
 to paint any more of myself. Although it may seem impossible,
I could no longer get any real pleasure out of it after I had
finished the eleventh, and this proves that one can get tired of
 even the most heavenly beauty...
"But..."   "May I mention that there is a certain repetition in your 
remarks? Let me finish, and then you can say 'but' as often as you like.
I turned from painting people to
painting the country. Nine times I painted the view from the back window,
 and
seven times I painted the view from the front window. But could I sell
the seven pictures of the view from the front window, or the nine of
the view from the back window? I could not. I only had a bit of money left,
 and I decided, after a severe struggle with myself, to forget my soul and
 paint for money. I determined to draw funny pictures for the newspapers.
Remember that I was without hope and almost hungry, so do not think of me
 too severely
"But…..
"I know what you are going to say - if I had had the soul of a true artist,
 I would have died rather than do such a thing. But remember that my wife and
 children were crying for bread - or would have been crying for bread if
I had had a wife and children. And was it my fault that I hadn't a wife and
little children? So I made thirty or forty funny drawings every day and sent
 them to the papers. I soon found that selling one's soul for money is not
 so easy as it sounds. Believe it or not, I got no money. I just got my
drawings back..."
"But..."      '
"You may well ask why they were sent back. I cannot tell you. I tested them
on the cat. I had often heard the expression 'funny enough to make a cat
laugh', and so I placed them in a line and carried the cat along in front of
 them. He laughed until he was sick ... in any case he was sick."
 
"Then I became more and more disheartened. I tried drawing for advertisements.
Clothes, pianos, bottles. Immensely tall ladies with foolish smiles.
I sent them off by the hundred, and all I received was a sample bottle
or two, and a sample card of wool. I rather expected to get a sample
tall lady with a foolish smile, but probably she got lost in the post..."
"But..."
"So I gave up the struggle. My heart was broken, and I determined to
take to my bed, never to rise again. You cannot help me, doctor.
No skill of yours can help me. I feel certain that I shall never
rise from this bed .."
"And I feel certain that you will," said the stranger, carefully
placing Augustus Poke whistle on the carpet, "because I've come:
to take it away. I'm from the furniture shop, and the bed isn't paid for."