Janet. And what now? I'm not broke yet, you great silly. (Laughs, but is rather intimidated by Carve's air.)
Carve. (Having unlocked box and taken a bag from it.) You see that? (He showers gold out of it.) Well, count it!
Janet. Gracious! Ten—fifteen—eighteen—twenty?—two—four—twenty-six pounds. These your savings?
Carve. That's what I've earned with painting, just at odd times.
Janet. Really? (Carve nods.) You could knock me down with a feather!
Carve. I'll tell you. You know the framemaker's next to Salmon and Gluckstein's. I buy my colours and canvases and things there. They cost money. I owed the chap two pounds once, and one morning, in the shop, when I was opening my box to put some new tubes in, he saw one of my pictures all wet. He offered of his own accord to take it for what I owed him. I wouldn't let him have it.
[102]But I was rather hard up, so I said I'd do him another instead, and I did him one in a different style and not half as good, and of course he liked it even better. Since then, I've done him quite a few. It isn't that I've needed the money; but it's a margin, and colours and frames, etc. come to a dickens of a lot in a year.
Janet. (Staggered.) And whatever does he do with them?
Carve. With the pictures? Don't know. I've never seen one in his window. I haven't been selling him any lately.
Janet. Why?