he brook that babbles by.'

"But I don't want you to paint me," rebelled the boy.

"Goodness! Why not?"

For a moment or two Arthur Miles faced the question almost sullenly.

"I don't want my likeness taken," he explained at length.

"My young friend," the artist cheerfully assured him, "if that's your
trouble, dismiss it. I can't paint a likeness for nuts."

"You are sure?"

"Well, I should say I have a grounded expectation, seeing that I claim a
bigger circle of friends than any other fellow that ever studied with
Carolus; and apart from their liking for me, their conviction that never
under any circumstances could I catch a likeness is about the only thing
they have in common. I don't say it's the cement of their friendship;
but, anyway, it's an added tie."

"If Tilda doesn't mind--"

The boy hesitated, with a glance over his shoulder.

"We'll consult the lady when the portrait's finished. If she
recognises you, I'll destroy the canvas; and I can't say fairer than
that . . . No, I shan't regret it. We'll call it an offering to the
gods . . . And now," pursued the young man, flinging in a charcoal
outline in fiery haste, "we'll consider the brakes open."

It took him perhaps thirty seconds to block in the figure, and at once
he fell to mixing his palette, his fingers moving with a nervous,
delicate haste. He held a brush between his teeth during the operation;
but no sooner was it over, and the gag removed, than his speech began to
gush in quick, impetuous jerks, each jerk marking an interval as, after
flinging a fresh splash of paint upon the canvas, he stepped back half a
pace to eye its effect.

"That's my theory--what's Art but temperament? expressed temperament?
Now I'm a fellow that could never stick long to a thing--never in my
life. I've not told you that I'm American, by the way. My name's
Jessup--George Pulteney Jessup, of Boise City, Idaho. My father--he's
about the most prominent citizen in the State of Idaho. You don't get
any ways far west of the Rockies before you bump against Nahum P.
Jessup--and you'll be apt to hurt yourself by bumping too hard. . . . My
father began by setting it down to fickleness. He said it came of
having too much money to play with. Mind you, he didn't complain.
He sent for me into his office, and 'George,' he said, 'there's some
fathers, finding you so vola_tile_, would take the line of cutting down
your allowance; but that's no line for me. To begin