“How?”
“I shall have to find out. But coal is trimmed—there’s been a lot about Coal-Trimmers in the papers lately, and I should love it. There’s such a lot of effects to be done with black—you ask Mr. Heal. Think of little white frills, and scarlet ribbons, and bright green pom-poms—”
“I never saw my Mother’s coal come into the drawing-room looking like an African Beauty Chorus,” said Gypsy, getting jealous. “I don’t believe that’s how you trim coal at all. I believe what coal-trimmers do is to put all those little goldy bits in the lumps, and that must be frightfully hard.”
“The first time I saw the goldy bits,” said Ginger, “I was nine years old. And I thought all we’d got to do was to get them out with a nutpick, and our fortune would be made. And I got the Army and Navy Stores Catalogue and turned up the Oriental Section, and decided I’d have a Moorish lamp and a Benares tray, and a sandalwood box, and an octagonal coffee-stool inlaid mother-of-pearl, and some joss-sticks, and wear a pink veil with gold spangles, and lie on three striped cushions all day long, and eat Turkish Delight, and be like the Arabian Nights.”
“Then you’d got a jolly thin idea of the Arabian Nights,” said Gypsy. “What a lot you talk.”
“I choose nice things to talk about anyhow,” said Ginger, “not dull ones like upside-down gas-mantles.”
“I’m not going to turn gas-mantles upside-down any more,” said Gypsy. “It’s cruel, because they’re subject to apoplexy. I’ve been getting a better idea lately. I’m going to paint Still Life.”
“What sort of still life?”
“Quite a new line. I shall paint Wax-Fruit-Pieces, and Artificial-Flower-Pieces. It’s never been done.”
“Yes it has been,” said Ginger. “The Pavement Artists all do it. The profession’s absolutely overcrowded, and it’s the rottenest Way and Mean we’ve discussed yet. I’m tired of Ways and Means, because while I go one way you mean another, and if we can’t find some sort of tandem profession we might as well stop being married at once. Let’s go for a walk to Golder’s Green and give cocoanuts to the emus. I wonder what the weather’s like.”