shed orchards, and visitors think you are a
scientific gardener, combating Plant Pests.

Personally I don't pay too much attention to the rather arbitrary
rules on painting laid down by the Painters' Union. Life is too
short. For instance, I don't put my brushes in turpentine when I
have finished for the day; and if I do I put the green brush and the
light-blue brush and the black brush and the white brush in the same
pot, and terrible things happen. I don't like my art to be hampered by
petty notions of economy, and if brushes persist in crystallising into
tooth-brushes when left to themselves for an hour or two I simply use
a new brush.

Nor do I insist on "cleaning thoroughly the surface before the paint
is applied." Anyone who sets out in practice to clean thoroughly the
surface of the basement before applying the paint will find that the
Easter holidays have slipped away long before any paint is applied at
all. Besides, one of the main objects of paint is to hide the dirt, so
why waste time in removing it?

On the other hand, I am not content with mere painting; I go in
thoroughly for all the refinements like driers and varnishes and
gold-size. Driers and gold-size are extremely necessary when painting
the basement, because if there is one thing the staff enjoy more than
tea-cups coming away in the 'and, it is really rubbing themselves
against wet paint and wandering round muttering complaints about it.
Without a driers or some drier or whatever it is, the basement
remains wet for ever, and all work ceases while the staff amble about,
ecstatically rubbing themselves against the doorposts and saying
"T'tt, t'tt," in a meaning way.

It is a sad quality of oil-paint that when it is dry it no longer
looks so lovely and shiny as it looks when it is wet. It was found
that the sense of disappointment which this produced was greater
than the Painters' Union could bear; so someone, in order to prevent
industrial strife, invented some stuff called varnish, by which, at
the very moment of disillusion, the maximum of shininess can be again
produced with the minimum of effort. It is one of the few inventions
which make a man grateful for the advance of science.

Well, that is all there is about painting. The only difficulty, once
you have begun, is to know when to stop. Painting is a kind of fever.
The painting of a single chair makes the whole room look dirty; so
the whole room has to be painted. Then, of course, the out