“Yes.”
“Now you look here. You hadn’t ought to of done that. Why, I hain’t used to paintin’. It’s been nigh ten year since I touched a paint-brush! Why, I plumb lost the habit! Dunno’s I could dip a brush in a paint-pail. Never was much of a painter, nohow.”
“You said you was the best.”
“So I was,” said Mr. Atkins, stubbornly.
“Said you could do it better now than anybody.”
“Kin.”
“Then what you mean by sayin’ you lost the habit and never was any good?”
“Jest a way of speakin’. Didn’t want to scare you. I kin paint and I could paint, but I been so long away from paint that it would be mighty dangerous for me to git near it agin.
“Why?”
“Painters’ colic. I’d git doubled up with it in a minnit. Frightful ailment. Nothin’ worse. If I was to be took with it when I was on top of a ladder nothin’ ’u’d save me. Down I’d come, ker-plop, and most likely bust my neck. Then what ’u’d you do?”