"It's little work you shall do in the way of cleaning up my messes," he said. "There's a charwoman about who brushes and scrubs and makes everything resplendent for half-a-crown per resplendency. On my word of honour she shall dust and clean. But you might help me to dust my sketches and put them out, mother. I got her to tidy-up once, and she wiped off a complete oil-sketch which was still wet."
Mrs. Lathom looked round.
"Of course I will," she said, "but oh, Charles, what squalor! A torn blind, and a broken screen, and three chairs all of which want reseating. And to think of Reggie and me last night stuffing ourselves at a restaurant with your money."
"Where shall we sup to-night?" asked Charles, bringing out a pile of canvasses.
"At twenty-three Sidney Street. Give me a duster. My dear, what a quantity of paintings."
An hour was sufficient to make Charles' private view presentable, and to display all his sketches, finished and unfinished, round the wainscot of his walls. Then without pause he put a new canvas on his easel, and bribed by his promise not to spend more than five shillings on their supper to-night, Mrs. Lathom consented to abandon her own work for an hour and sit for him. He put her typewriter on the table, and made her rehearse.
"It's like an instantaneous photograph," he said, "at least that is what the picture is going to be like. Oh, do attend, mother, and not look at the skeleton. Reggie stuck it there with a straw hat on it: it doesn't matter. You may dust it afterwards. Now! Tinkle with your typewriter, and then all of a sudden Reggie or I come in here to your right, and you put your hand on the arm of your chair, and get up saying, 'Gosh, what a surprise and how nice!' Does your poor mind take that in at all? It's rather important."
Mrs. Lathom sat down in obedience to this peremptory son. She clacked her machine, and turned woodenly round, with a smile as wooden as her gesture.
"No, not at all like that," said Charles. He had set his easel up, and was waiting with poised charcoal. "Can't you manage to get up, as you did when I came in this morning? Exercise your imagination. Look surprised! Will you try again? You are working hard with your typewriter: is that clear? You are thinking that there is a debt of sixty pounds to clear off, and that Reggie is very ill. Then on a sudden the door opens, here to your right, and Reggie comes in, quite well, bursting with health, and a stack of sovereigns. Do attend, think of what I tell you to think of. Then you get up, and say 'Darling Reggie!' I shall say, 'One, two, three,' and then do it, and then stop just in the position I have told you. Never mind about your face."
Charles took up his charcoal again, and stood with hand poised.