nsane desire to get a pot of the famous paint and set to
work himself upon a similar labour.

Kate came gently across the floor and placed a jug of iced lemon water
and a tumbler at his elbow.

She was about to withdraw in perfect silence, but he detained her.

"Kate," he said.

Her most motherly look was on her face.

"What is it, dear lad?" she said, for her heart was full of futile
sympathy for his straits.

"Kate," he said yearningly. "Do you think Larkin could get me a pot of
Perfect Perfection Enamel warranted to dry in ten minutes, all colours
kept in stock? If I can't enamel a bedstead this very minute I won't
answer for my reason."

Kate walked deliberately across the room and boxed his ears.

CHAPTER XVII

LITERATURE IS LOW

But after half an hour's further struggle he got up and drifted
aimlessly out of the room, finally bringing up in the kitchen.

Kate was here concocting a savoury and an _entree_ and two or three
other things for his dinner, for she had packed the depressed and
depressing Ellen off to the bakers' picnic with Anna from "Greenways"
and was sole mistress of her hearth and home for the day.

Here she was when her brother found her, covered up in a spotless apron
and, with sleeves rolled engagingly back over her plump white arms,
energetically pounding up some anchovies. Hugh sat down heavily on the
edge of the dresser.

"A writer's a miserable beast, K," he said dejectedly.

"Give it up to-day, boy," she said. "I can see you can't help yourself.
Go for a walk,--go and look up the little pets. Or have a romp with the
children across the road. Don't break your back to-day over a load that
another day you will snap your fingers at."

He took no notice of her suggestions.

"Can you deny that it is a miserable trade? A womanish sort of business?
You sit twiddling your pen, your nerves so a-stretch that if a door
bangs the mood shuts down on you for the day. And there's that fellow
across the road swinging away with his axe among the trees just as he
has been ever since breakfast. He'll leave off presently and boil his
billy and eat his bread and cheese and have his smoke, and then back
he'll go to his work. There it is spread out straight before him, and
the muscles on his arms--have you ever noticed the fellow's
muscles?--tell him that he is equal to it. Do you ever see _him_ pacing
distractedly about, wondering if the mood will come to him? Do you ever
see _him_ sitti