Part 31 (1/2)
For a few seconds the children observed him in silence. But some sound must have warned him; for by and by he turned a quick, eager face, and caught sight of them.
”Ah!” he exclaimed, scanning them rapidly up and down. ”The very thing!--that is to say”--after a second and more prolonged scrutiny-- ”the boy. He just fills the bill. 'Youthful Shakespeare Mews his Mighty Youth. The scene: Binton Bridges, beside Avon.'”
”Binton Bridges?” echoed Tilda, and walked forward to scan the sign-board.
”I must put that down,” said the artist, drawing out a notebook and pencil. ”Ignorance of Juvenile Population in respect of Immediate Surroundings. Implied Reproach against Britain's Primary Schools.”
But by this time the girl was standing under the sign-board and staring up at it. Four figures were depicted thereon in gay colours--a king, a priest, a soldier, and a John Bull farmer. Around them ran this legend--
”RULE ALL, PRAY ALL, FIGHT ALL, PAY ALL.”
”Do you 'appen to know, sir,” she asked, coming back, ”if there's a young woman employed 'ere?”
”There is,” answered the artist. ”I happen to know, because she won't let me paint her, although I offered ten dollars.”
”That's a good sign,” said Tilda.
”Oh, is it now?” he queried, staring after her as she marched boldly towards the house and was lost to sight between the willow-stems.
CHAPTER XVI.
ADVENTURES OF THE ”FOUR ALLS” AND OF THE CELESTIAL CHEMIST
”'_Friend Sancho,' said Don Quixote, 'this Island that I promised you can neither stir nor fly._'”--CERVANTES.
”Now what precisely did your sister mean by that?” asked the artist, withdrawing his gaze and fixing it on Arthur Miles.
”She is not my sister,” said the boy.
The artist--he was an extraordinarily tall young man, with a keen hatchet face, restless brown eyes, and straight auburn hair parted accurately in the middle--considered for a moment, then nodded.
”That's so. It comes out, soon as you talk . . . Well, see here now, we'll start right away. That's how Art hits me--once I take hold of a notion, I must sling in and get going. It's my temperament; and what's Art--right _there_, please--what's Art, after all, but expressed temperament? You catch the idea? You're the Infant Shakespeare, the youth to fortune and to fame unknown--”
'His listless length at noontide would he stretch'--
”Stretch what you have of it--”
'And pore upon the brook that babbles by.'
”But I don't want you to paint me,” rebelled the boy.
”Goodness! Why not?”
For a moment or two Arthur Miles faced the question almost sullenly.
”I don't want my likeness taken,” he explained at length.
”My young friend,” the artist cheerfully a.s.sured him, ”if that's your trouble, dismiss it. I can't paint a likeness for nuts.”
”You are sure?”
”Well, I should say I have a grounded expectation, seeing that I claim a bigger circle of friends than any other fellow that ever studied with Carolus; and apart from their liking for me, their conviction that never under any circ.u.mstances could I catch a likeness is about the only thing they have in common. I don't say it's the cement of their friends.h.i.+p; but, anyway, it's an added tie.”