"Did that look all right to you?" he asked.
"Why, my dear chap, whatever ails you?" I cried.
"I suppose," he went on, "you couldn't photograph me to-night—now?"
I could have done, with magnesium, but I hadn't a scrap in the place. I told him so. He was looking round my studio. He saw my camera standing in a corner.
"Ah!" he said.
He made a stride towards it. He unscrewed the lens, brought it to the lamp, and peered attentively through it, now into the air, now at his sleeve and hand, as if looking for a flaw in it. Then he replaced it, and pulled up the collar of his dressing-gown as if he was cold.
"Well, another night of it," he muttered; "but," he added, facing suddenly round on me, "if your appointment was to meet your God Himself, you must photograph me at ten to-morrow morning!"
"All right," I said, giving in (for he seemed horribly ill). "Draw up to the stove and have a drink of something and a smoke."
"I neither drink nor smoke," he replied, moving towards the door.
"Sit down and have a chat, then," I urged; for I always like to be decent with fellows, and it was a lonely sort of place, that yard.