thered near.

Uncle William pushed his spectacles farther up on the tufts. His face
glowed. "The sky is all right," he said, "if ye know how to take it; but
ye wouldn't trust a sky like that, would ye?"

The Frenchman turned to him, blinking a little. His glasses had slipped
from his nose. They hung dangling from the end of the long chain. "Trust
it?" he said vaguely. "It's the real thing!"

Uncle William's face assumed an air of explanation. "It's good as far
as it goes. The' ain't anything the matter with it--not anything you
can lay your finger on--not till you get over there, a little east by
sou'east. Don't you see anything the matter over there?" He asked the
question with cordial interest.

The Frenchman held the eyeglass chain in his fingers. He swung the
glasses to his nose and stared at the spot indicated.

Uncle William regarded him hopefully.

The glasses dropped. He faced about, shaking his head. "I'm afraid I
don't see it." He spoke in polite deprecation. "It seems to me very
nearly perfect." He faced it again. "I can breathe that air."

"So can I," said Uncle William. "So can I."

They stood looking at it in silence. "It'll be fo'-five hours before it
strikes," said Uncle William, thoughtfully.

"Before it--" The Frenchman had half turned. The rapt look in his face
wrinkled a little.

"Before it strikes," repeated Uncle William. "That cloud I p'inted out
to you means business."

The Frenchman looked again. The wrinkles crept to the corners of his
eyes. He turned them on Uncle William. "I see. You were speaking of the
weather?"

"Wa'n't you?" demanded Uncle William.

"Well--partly. Yes, partly. But I'm afraid I was thinking how well it is
done." His face grew dreamy. "To think that paint and canvas and a few
careless strokes--"

"He worked putty hard," broke in Uncle William. Sergia's hand on his arm
stayed him. He remained open-mouthed, staring at his blunder.

But the Frenchman had not perceived it. He accepted the correction with
a cordial nod. "Of course--infinite patience. And then a thing like
that!" he lifted his hand toward it slowly. It was a kind of courteous
salute--the obeisance due to royalty.

Uncle William watched it a little grudgingly. "They're putty good
rocks," he said--"without paint."

The Frenchman faced him. "Don't I know?" He checked himself. "I've not
mentioned it to you, but I was born and brought up on those rocks."

"You was!" Uncle William confronted him.