The Captain's Sculpture, parts 96 - 99

96. Can a work of art be too good, can something modeled in clay be too perfect, so perfect indeed that you can hardly resist the impulse to fling the thing right down onto the cement floor of the studio room.

97. One thing is for certain, I could not have done anything even remotely as good as the Captain’s sculpture, I would not have even ventured to try.

 98. I continued with my castings of metal street covers, and although the other students admired them, I had the distinct feeling that they thought it was all a kind of pointless gimmick.

99. Then something happened that altered the entire situation and put me in a terrible predicament. I will tell you what this problem was, and I wonder what you would have done if you found yourself in a similar situation.