CHAPTER I MR LEAVESLEY
"You may take away the things, Belinda," said Mr Leavesley, lighting his pipe and taking his seat at the easel. "Nobody called this morning, I suppose?"
"Only the Capting, sir," replied Belinda, piling the tray. "He called at seven to borry your umbrella."
"Did you give it him?"
"No, sir, Mr Verneede's got it; you lent it to him the night before last, and he hasn't brought it back."
"Ah, so I did," said Mr Leavesley, squeezing Naples yellow from an utterly exhausted looking tube. "So I did, so I did; that's the fifteenth umbrella or so that Verneede has annexed of mine: what does he do with them, do you think, Belinda?"
"I'm sure I don't know, sir," replied the maid-of-all-work, looking round the studio as if in search of inspiration, "unless he spouts them."
"That will do, Belinda," said the owner of the lost umbrellas, turning to his work, and the servant-maid departed.
It was a large, pleasant studio, furnished with very little affectation, and its owner was a slight, pleasant-faced youth, happy-go-lucky looking, with a glitter in his grey eyes suggesting a touch of genius or insanity in their owner.
He was an orphan blessed with a small competency. His income, to use his own formula, consisted of a hundred a year and an uncle. During the first four months or so of the year he spent the hundred pounds, during the rest of the year he squandered his uncle; that is to say he would have squandered him only for the fact that Mr James Hancock, of the firm of Hancock & Hancock, solicitors, was a person most difficult to "negotiate."