when five minutes would mend his tools
and make him happy.

An artist's work--any artist's, but especially a glass-painter's--should
be just as finished, precise, clean, and alert as a surgeon's or a
dentist's. Have you not in the case of these (when the affair has not
been too serious) admired the way in which the cool, white hands move
about, the precision with which the finger-tips take up this or that,
and when taken up use it "just _so_," neither more nor less: the
spotlessness and order and perfect finish of every tool and material,
from those fearsome things which (though you prefer not to dwell on
their uses) you cannot help admiring, down to the snowy cotton-wool
daintily poked ready through the holes in a little silver beehive? Just
such skill, handling, and precision, and just such perfection of
instruments, I urge as proper to painting.

_What Tools are wanted to complete the Outline._--I will now describe
those tools which you want at this stage, that is, _to mend your outline
with_.

[Illustration: FIG. 24.]

You want the brush which you used in the first instance to paint it
with, and that has already been described; but you also want points of
various fineness to etch it away with where it is too thick; these are
the needle and the stick (fig. 24); any needle set in a handle will do,
but if you want it for fine work, take care that it be sharp. "How
foolish," you say; "as if you need tell us that." On the contrary,--nine
people out of ten need telling, because they go upon the assumption that
a needle _must_ be sharp, "as sharp as a needle," and cannot need
sharpening,--and they will go on for 365 days in a year wondering why a
needle (which _must_ be sharp) should take out so much coarser a light
than they want.

Now as to "sticks"; if you make a point of soft wood it lasts for three
or four touches and then gets "furred" at the point, and if of very hard
wood it slips on the glass. Bamboo is good; but the best of all--that is
to say for broad stick-lights--is an old, sable oil-colour brush,
clogged with oil and varnish till it is as hard as horn and then cut to
a point; this "clings" a little as it goes over the glass, and is most
comfortable to use.

I have no doubt that other materials may be equally good, celluloid or
horn, for example; the student must use his own ingenuity on such a
simple matter.

_How to Complete the Outline._--With the tools above described complete
the outline--by a