“Say,” says I, “that’s funny paint.”
“You bet,” says he.
“What’s the idea?” says I.
“Don’t you remember that paint we saw advertised in that boy’s magazine? We were talking about what fun we could have with it. Well, I didn’t say anything, but I sent off and got a tube, and I’ve kept it till the right time came to use it. This is the time,” says he.
“You mean that night-shining paint?”
“Luminous paint, they call it. Got radium in it.”
“Bet it hasn’t,” says I. “Radium’s too expensive to put in paint. A piece of radium as big as a pea, would be worth a hundred million dollars.”
“Anyhow, they call it radium,” says he, “and it’s just as good for what we want it for.”
“Go ahead and paint,” says I.
So he went ahead. Catty had quite a knack for drawing and now he did better than usual. I guess he got inspiration out of the mess we were in. He started at the top of the board, and I couldn’t make out what he was up to for a while, but then I saw. He was painting a skull. It didn’t shine much, but he said it was because we had a light. When he finished the skull, he kept right on and drew a whole skeleton. Maybe the skeleton wasn’t just right in spots, with every bone where it belonged, and the right number of teeth and everything, but it looked to me like a mighty fine skeleton. I never cared much for skeletons anyhow. As I look at it, skeletons are a kind of a nuisance, and nobody wants one around, especially at night.