“Burlington House, pah!” he would say, half-shutting one eye as he held up in the middle distance a glistening sausage, crackling from the pan. “It is the Mausoleum of Art, my dear.”
“Mausoleum?” inquired Ginger, biting off her thread, because she was neatening a loose end of braid on the Pavement Artist’s shabby brown cotton velveteen jacket. She often did such jobs for her friends at midnight.
“I think it’s the name of a music-hall,” whispered Gypsy.
“Of a dancing-hall,” corrected the Pavement Artist, “where they do the Dance of Death to the skeleton rattle of easels and mahlsticks. Vampires sit at the door waiting to suck the red blood from the veins of any living artist who ventures in. Once in he seldom, if ever, gets out again. I thought it wasn’t worth it, and I took to the art of the populace on the pavements.”
“Do the populace like art?” asked Gypsy.
“They like mine,” said the P.A. “I paint their dreams for them.”
“What are their dreams?” asked Ginger.
“Salmon and Switzerland,” said the P.A. His eyes grew hazy. “They are also mine. Have you ever eaten salmon?” He attacked Gypsy abruptly.
“Twice,” said Gypsy, suppressing a hundredth part of the truth out of kindness of heart.
“Ah. So have I—tinned. And have you ever seen Switzerland?”