was borne out by his history.
Not a beautiful man, by any means, but the best type of English
comeliness: ruddy-coloured, straight, and healthy; muscular, but
without a suggestion of brutality. His yellow moustache, a shade
lighter than his hair--which, although he wore it cropped, showed a
tendency to be curling--concealed a mouth that was his only
questionable feature. It was not the sensitive mouth of the through
and through artist, and the lines of it were vacillating. The lips,
had they not been hidden, would have surprised by their fulness,
contradicting, in some part, the curious coldness of his light blue
eyes. All said, however, he remained a singularly handsome fellow;
and the slight consciousness which he occasionally betrayed, that
his personality was pleasing, hardly detracted from it; it was,
after all, a harmless vanity that his friends could afford to
overlook. Just then his thoughts, which had wandered many leagues
from the warehouses of Blackpool, were brought up sharply by the
noise of an approaching footstep. He started slightly, but a moment
later greeted the new-comer with a pleasant smile of recognition. It
was Rainham's foreman and general manager, with whom the artist, as
with most persons with whom he was often in contact, was on
excellent, and even familiar, terms.

"Look here, Bullen," he said, twisting the easel round a little,
"the picture is practically finished. A few more strokes--I shall do
them at home--and it is ready for the Academy. How do you like it?"

Mr. Bullen bent down his burly form and honoured the little canvas
with a respectful scrutiny.

"That is Trinidad Wharf, sir, I suppose?" he suggested, pointing
with a huge forefinger at the background a little uncertainly.

"That is Trinidad Wharf, Bullen, certainly! And those masts are
from the ships in the Commercial Docks. But the river, the
atmosphere--that's the point--how do they strike you?"

"Well, it's beautiful, sir," remarked Bullen cordially; "painted
like the life, you may say. But isn't it just a little smudgy, sir?"

"That's the beauty of it, Bullen. It's impressionism, you
Philistine!--a sort of modified impressionism, you know, to suit the
hangers. 'Gad, Bullen, you ought to be a hanger yourself! Bullen,
my dear man, if it wasn't that you _do_ know how to paint a ship's
side, I would even go so far as to say that you have all the
qualifications of an Academician."

"Ah, if it comes to that, Mr. Lightmark,