A sunbeam began it. It peeped over the edge of the side wall—the wall really was but little higher than Peter's head when he stood erect—and started in to creep down my half-finished sketch. Peter rose in his wrath, reached for my white umbrella, and at once opened it and screwed together the jointed handle. Then he began searching for some convenient supporting hook on which to hang his shield of defence. Next a brilliant, intellectual dynamite-bomb of a thought split his cranium. He would hoist the umbrella above the top of the thin wall of the bath-house, resting one half upon its upper edge, drive the iron spike into the plank under our feet, and secure the handle by placing his back against it. No sunbeam should pass him!
The effect can be imagined on the High-Pan-Jam inside the bath-house—an amphibious guardian, oblivious naturally to sun and rain—when his eye fell upon this flag of defiance thrust up above his ramparts. You can imagine, too, the consternation of the peaceful inmates of the open pools, whose laughter had now and then risen above the sough of the wind and splash of the water. Almost immediately I heard the sound of hurrying footsteps from a point where no sound had come before, and there followed the scraping of a pair of toes on the planking behind me, as if some one was drawing himself up.
I looked around and up and saw eight fingers clutching the top of the planking, and a moment later the round face of an astonished Dutchman. I haven't the faintest idea what he said. I didn't know then and I don't know now. I only remember that his dialect sounded like the traditional crackling of thorns under a pot, including the spluttering, and suggesting the equally heated temperature. When his fingers gave out he would drop out of sight, only to rise again and continue the attack.
Here Peter, I must say, did credit to his Dutch ancestors. He did not temporize. He did not argue. He ignored diplomacy at the start, and blazed out that we were out of everybody's way and on the lee side of the structure; that there was no sign up on that side; that I was a most distinguished personage of blameless life and character, and that, rules or no rules, he was going to stay where he was and so was I.
"You tam blowdy rock. It's s'welve o'clook now—no rule aft' s'welve o'clook,—nopody ba'd now;"—This in Dutch, but it meant that, then turning to me, "You stay—you no go—I brek tam head him."—
None of this interested me. I had heard Peter explode before. I was trying to match the tone of an opalescent cloud inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the shadow side all purplish gray. Its warm high-lights came all right, but I was half out of my head trying to get its shadow-tones true with Payne's gray and cobalt. The cloud itself had already cast its moorings and was fast drifting over the English Channel. It would be out of sight in five minutes.
"Peter—Peter!" I cried. "Don't talk so much. Here, give him half a gulden and tell him to dry up. Hand me that sky brush—quick now!"
The High Pan-Jam dropped with a thud to his feet. His swinging footsteps could be heard growing fainter, but no stiver of my silver had lined his pocket.
I worked on. The tea-rose cloud had disappeared entirely; only its poor counterfeit remained. The boats were nearly finished; another wash over their sails would bring them all right. Then the tramp as of armed men came from the in-shore side of the bath-house. Peter stood up and craned his neck around the edge of the planking, and said in an undertone:—
"Tam b'lice, he come now; nev' mind, you stay 'ere—no go. Tam blowdy rock no mak' you go."