g picture at the end of the studio was by him.

That picture! To Tiki-pu it seemed worth all the rest of the world put
together. He knew, too, the story which was told of it, making it as
holy to his eyes as the tombs of his own ancestors. The apprentices
joked over it, calling it "Wio-wani's back-door," "Wio-wani's
night-cap," and many other nicknames; but Tiki-pu was quite sure, since
the picture was so beautiful, that the story must be true.

Wio-wani, at the end of a long life, had painted it; a garden full of
trees and sunlight, with high-standing flowers and green paths, and
in their midst a palace. "The place where I would like to rest," said
Wio-wani, when it was finished.

So beautiful was it then, that the Emperor himself had come to see it;
and gazing enviously at those peaceful walks, and the palace nestling
among the trees, had sighed and owned that he too would be glad of such
a resting-place. Then Wio-wani stepped into the picture, and walked away
along a path till he came, looking quite small and far-off, to a low
door in the palace-wall. Opening it, he turned and beckoned to the
Emperor; but the Emperor did not follow; so Wio-wani went in by himself,
and shut the door between himself and the world for ever.

That happened three hundred years ago; but for Tiki-pu the story was
as fresh and true as if it had happened yesterday. When he was left to
himself in the studio, all alone and locked up for the night, Tiki-pu
used to go and stare at the picture till it was too dark to see, and
at the little palace with the door in its wall by which Wio-wani
had disappeared out of life. Then his soul would go down into his
finger-tips, and he would knock softly and fearfully at the beautifully
painted door, saying, "Wio-wani, are you there?"

Little by little in the long-thinking nights, and the slow early
mornings when light began to creep back through the papered windows of
the studio, Tiki-pu's soul became too much for him. He who could strain
paper, and grind colours, and wash brushes, had everything within reach
for becoming an artist, if it was the will of fate that he should be
one.

He began timidly at first, but in a little while he grew bold. With the
first wash of light he was up from his couch on the hard floor, and was
daubing his soul out on scraps, and odds-and-ends, and stolen pieces of
rice-paper.

Before long the short spell of daylight which lay between dawn and the
arrival of the apprenti