ve
up the idear altogether.'

'Well, sat Friday morning, then,' said Owen, resolving that he would
stay up all night if necessary to get it done.

Rushton shook his head.

'Can't you get it done before that? I'm afraid that if we keeps 'im
waiting all that time we may lose the job altogether.'

'I can't get them done any quicker in my spare time,' returned Owen,
flushing. 'If you like to let me stay home tomorrow and charge the
time the same as if I had gone to work at the house, I could go to my
ordinary work on Wednesday and let you have the drawings on Thursday
morning.'

'Oh, all right,' said Rushton as he returned to the perusal of his
letters.

That night, long after his wife and Frankie were asleep, Owen worked in
the sitting-room, searching through old numbers of the Decorators'
Journal and through the illustrations in other books of designs for
examples of Moorish work, and making rough sketches in pencil.

He did not attempt to finish anything yet: it was necessary to think
first; but he roughed out the general plan, and when at last he did go
to bed he could not sleep for a long time. He almost fancied he was in
the drawing-room at the 'Cave'. First of all it would be necessary to
take down the ugly plaster centre flower with its crevices all filled
up with old whitewash. The cornice was all right; it was fortunately a
very simple one, with a deep cove and without many enrichments. Then,
when the walls and the ceiling had been properly prepared, the
ornamentation would be proceeded with. The walls, divided into panels
and arches containing painted designs and lattice-work; the panels of
the door decorated in a similar manner. The mouldings of the door and
window frames picked out with colours and gold so as to be in character
with the other work; the cove of the cornice, a dull yellow with a bold
ornament in colour--gold was not advisable in the hollow because of the
unequal distribution of the light, but some of the smaller mouldings of
the cornice should be gold. On the ceiling there would be one large
panel covered with an appropriate design in gold and colours and
surrounded by a wide margin or border. To separate this margin from
the centre panel there would be a narrow border, and another
border--but wider--round the outer edge of the margin, where the
ceiling met the cornice. Both these borders and the margin would be
covered with ornamentation in colour and gold. Great care would b