“Not real! What do you mean?” snapped Mr Papingay. “Of course they’re real. Sit on one and see.”
“Don’t be silly, Jack,” Molly broke in. “They certainly look most comfortable. I do think it is clever of you to make them,” she said to the old man.
“Oh, no, no. Not at all. Simple enough,” said Mr Papingay airily, appeased at once. “But you try one. They may look comfortable, but it’s nothing to what they are to sit on. You try one,” he urged.
So Molly pretended to sit down on one of the painted chairs. It was a most curious sensation. Although she knew there was no chair there she felt somehow as if she really were sitting on a chair; so that when the old man asked her, with a self-conscious smile on his face, “Now, isn’t it comfortable?” she could answer truthfully, “Yes, it really is.”
Yet, afterward, Jack told her that he had tried one of the chairs when she and the old man were not looking, and had nearly fallen on the floor. “I found it anything but comfortable—the silly old ass,” he said.
When they had admired the study to the old man’s content he led them out into the hall again and up the stairs to a curious little room he called his visitors room. As they went upstairs Molly tried to tell their host who they were and how they knew Glan and his father, but he kept up a constant stream of conversation himself and took no notice of her remarks.
The children found the visitors room more difficult than ever to be truthful and yet polite in. It had been hard to pretend the painted stair-carpet was soft and real, and that the books in the study could be taken out and read; but these things were nothing compared to the difficulties in the visitors room. It was a small, high-ceilinged room, furnished with painted chairs and tables; only, in addition to the painted furniture were painted people. Round the walls and on the floor, people standing, people sitting, ladies, gentlemen, girls and boys; some with hats on as if paying an afternoon call, some with hats off as if they had come to spend the day. But one and all, without exception, were simply painted people. On the panes of one of the real windows was painted the figure of a sandy-haired man, back view; this gentleman, who was dressed in a dull grey suit and a high white collar, was apparently looking out of the window.
