He wouldn't for a long time, but at last he had to.
"I shan't ever come to your beastly house again," he bellowed through the keyhole, "so I don't mind."
"Turn off the gas-burners then," said Oswald, ever thoughtful, though he was still in ignorance of the beautiful truth.
Then Noël sang out over the stairs, "Light up!" and Jane went round with a taper, and when the landing gas was lighted Noël turned the knob of the bath-room, and Archibald exited in his Indian red and yellow dressing-gown that he thought so much of. Of course we expected his face to be red with rage, or white with passion, or purple with mixed emotions, but you cannot think what our feelings were—indeed, we hardly knew what they were ourselves—when we saw that he was not red or white or purple, but black. He looked like an uneven sort of bluish nigger. His face and hands were all black and blue in streaks, and so were the bits of his feet that showed between his Indian dressing-gown and his Turkish slippers.
"WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT?" HE ASKED. "NYANG, NYANG!" JANE ANSWERED TAUNTINGLY.
The word "Krikey" fell from more than one lip.
"What are you staring at?" he asked.
We did not answer even then, though I think it was less from keep-your-wordishness than amazement. But Jane did.
"Nyang, Nyang!" she uttered tauntingly. "You thought it was soap I was giving you, and all the time it was Maple's dark bright navy-blue indelible dye—won't wash out." She flashed a looking-glass in his face, and he looked and saw the depth of his dark bright navy-blueness.