Warily William approached. The man had a pointed beard, and very bushy eyebrows.
“Boy!” he called again.
“Uh-huh?” said William non-committally, coming up to the window. The room inside was evidently a studio. Several easels stood about and the table was littered with tubes of paint and palettes.
“Just what I wanted,” said the man, “a boy—a real human boy—of the ruffian type, too. Splendid! My boy, I’ve been longing for you all morning. I’ve tried to materialise you. You are probably at this moment nothing but the creature of my brain. I wished for a boy and a boy appeared. I was just thinking that I must go out into the highways and byways to search for one when lo! the boy my thoughts had conjured up stood before us. I’m a superman, a magician. I always had a suspicion that I might be. Come in, boy.”
Distrustfully William entered the studio. The man gazed at him rapturously.
“Just what I wanted,” he said, “a dirty rapscallion of a boy with a crooked tie and a grimy collar.”
This insult stung William to retaliation. He gazed coldly at the artist who had a smear of yellow paint down one side of his face, and said:
“Bet I’m as clean as you are ... an’ as to ties——” his gaze wandered down to the artist’s flowing bow and stayed there meaningly.
“Spirited withal!” commented the artist, “better and better.... Come in.”
William came in.