in it?" he suggested.

"Money? Dunno's there is," returned the other. "You don't reely need
money if you're a sailor."

"No, I suppose not--no more than an artist."

"Don't you need money, either?" The old man spoke with cordial interest.

"Well, occasionally--not much. I have to buy canvas now and then, and
colors--"

The old man nodded. "Same as me. Canvas costs a little, and color. I dye
mine in magenta. You get it cheap in the bulk--"

The artist laughed out. "All right, Uncle William, all right," he said.
"You teach me to trust in the Lord and I'll teach you art. You see that
color out there,--deep green like shadowed grass--"

The old man nodded. "I've seen that a good many times," he said.
"Cur'us, ain't it?--just the color of lobsters when you haul 'em."

The young man started. He glanced again at the harbor. "Hum-m!" he said
under his breath. He searched in his color-box and mixed a fresh color
rapidly on the palette, transferring it swiftly to the canvas. "Ah-h!"
he said, again under his breath. It held a note of satisfaction.

Uncle William hitched up his suspender and came leisurely across the
sand. He squinted at the canvas and then at the sliding water, rising
and falling across the bay. "Putty good," he said approvingly. "You've
got it just about the way it looks--"

"Just about," assented the young man, with quick satisfaction. "Just
about. Thank you."

Uncle William nodded. "Cur'us, ain't it? there's a lot in the way you
see a thing."

"There certainly is," said the painter. His brush moved in swift strokes
across the canvas. "There certainly is. I've been studying that water
for two hours. I never thought of lobsters." He laughed happily.

Uncle William joined him, chuckling gently. "That's nateral enough," he
said kindly. "You hain't been seein' it every day for sixty year, the
way I hev." He looked at it again, lovingly, from his height.

"What's the good of being an artist if I can't see things that you
can't?" demanded the young man, swinging about on his stool.

"Well, what _is_ the use? I dunno; do you?" said Uncle William,
genially. "I've thought about that a good many times, too, when I've
been sailin'," he went on--"how them artists come up here summer after
summer makin' picters,--putty poor, most on 'em,--and what's the use?
I can see better ones settin' out there in my boat, any day.--Not but
that's better'n some," he added politely, indicating the half-finished
canvas.