Paul flushed. "I don't know what you mean," he said. "I only want you to keep still like that while I—while I make a model of you. You said you had n't got any shillings just now."
"Did I say that?" inquired the stranger. "Well, well! However, chuck us over your shilling and I 'll see what I can do for you."
He made a show of biting the coin and subjecting it to other tests of its goodness while the boy looked on anxiously. Paul was relieved when at last he pocketed it and lay back again.
"I 'll get rid of it somehow," he said. "It's very well made. And now, am I to look pleasant, or what?"
"Don't look at all," directed Paul. "Just be like—like you are. You can go to sleep if you like."
"I never sleep on an empty stomach," replied the stranger, arranging himself in an attitude of comfort.
"Is this all right for you? Fire away, then, Mike Angelo. Can I talk while you 're at it?"
"If you want to," answered Paul. The clay which he had been shaping was another head, and now he kneaded it out of shape between his hands and rounded it rudely for a sketch of the face before him. The Kafir, Kamis, had bidden him refrain from his attempts to do mass and detail at once, to form the features and the expression together; but Paul knew he had little time before him and meant to make the most of it. The tramp had his hands joined behind his head and his eyes half-closed; he offered to the boy the spectacle of a man beaten to the very ground and content to take his ease there.
"D'you do much of this kind of thing?" asked the tramp, when some silent minutes had passed.
"Yes," said Paul, "a lot."