“Oh, explanations are of no use,” she replied. “You just do as I tell you and then you will know all about it. This isn’t a school; it’s a workshop. When we have got the gelatine in to soak, I will show you how to make a plaster case.”
“It seems to me,” I retorted, “that my instructress has graduated in the academy of Squeers. ‘W-i-n-d-e-r winder; now go and clean one.’ Isn’t that the method?”
“Apprentices are not allowed to waste time in wrangling,” she rejoined, severely. “Go and put on one of Daddy’s blouses and I will set you to work.”
This practical method of instruction justified itself abundantly. The reasons for each process emerged at once as soon as the process was completed. And it was withal a pleasant method, for there is no comradeship so sympathetic as the comradeship of work; nor any which begets so wholesome and friendly an intimacy. But though there were playful and frivolous interludes—as when the forewoman’s working hand became encrusted with clay and had to be cleansed with a sponge by the apprentice—we worked to such purpose that by the time Mr. Polton was due, the plaster bust (of which a wax replica was to be made) was firmly fixed on the work-table on a clay foundation and surrounded by a carefully levelled platform of clay, in which it was embedded to half its thickness. I had just finished smoothing the surface when there came a knock at the outer door; on which Marion started violently and clutched my arm. But she recovered in a moment, and exclaimed in a tone of vexation:
“How silly I am! Of course, it is Mr. Polton.”
It was. I found him on the threshold in rapt contemplation of the knocker, and looking rather like an archdeacon on tour. He greeted me with a friendly crinkle and I then conducted him into the studio and presented him to Marion, who shook his hand warmly and thanked him so profusely for coming to her aid that he was quite abashed. However, he did not waste time in compliments, but, producing an apron from his hand-bag, took off his coat, donned the apron, rolled up so sleeves, and beamed inquiringly at the bust.
“We are going to make a plaster case for the gelatine mould, Mr. Polton,” Marion explained, and proceeded to a few preliminary directions, to which the new apprentice listened with respectful attention. But she had hardly finished when he fell to work with a quiet, unhurried facility that filled me with envy. He seemed to know where to find everything. He discovered the waste-paper with which to cover the model to prevent the clay from sticking to it, he pounced on the clay bin at the first shot, and when he had built up the shape for the case, found the plaster-bin, mixing-bowl, and spoon as if he had been born and bred in the workshop, stopping only for a moment to test the condition of the gelatine in the bucket.
“Mr. Polton,” Marion said, after watching him for a while, “you are an impostor—a dreadful impostor. You pretend to come here as an improver, but you really know all about gelatine moulding; now, don’t you?”
Polton admitted apologetically that he “had done a little in that way. But,” he added, in extenuation, “I have never done any work in wax. And, talking of wax, the doctor will be here presently.”
“Dr. Thorndyke?” Marion asked.