As to Paul, in these days, that Beggar-Man moved into Fordham Manor and lived with him. He and the boy became inseparables. He inspired a thousand songs that did not mention his name, but he related incidents and preached parables that Paul would retail as wholly his own. Ursula was their confidante. Mrs. Manning, at first bewildered, at length perforce tolerant, got used to the arrival of Paul on a morning breathless from a race across the park. "Good-morning, Mrs. Manning," he would shout, "where's Ursula?"
"Good-morning," she would say. "In the studio, painting."
"I'll go up, if I may," he would reply, and dash up the stairs.
Ursula, at her easel, would smile gravely and call "Come in" almost before he knocked.
"Oh, I say," Paul would cry gaily, "what do you think the Beggar-Man told me last night? He says that, after the cure, he went off to his house without his stick. Without his stick. He could hardly believe so simple a thing as that as he went, but it was true. For the first time, then, he saw his home—a poor enough shanty, but his own home, that he saw for the first time. He was still rubbing the tears out of his eyes, when there came a knock at the door.
"He opened it.
"'Excuse me,' said the man without, trembling with eagerness, 'but is there any more of that clay? I don't want all yours, of course, only just a little.... Or if you could tell me where to get it....'
"'Good heavens!' roared the blind man (asserting himself for the first time in history, Ursula), 'it was clay, man, good honest clay! Look at it! Turn round and look at it! There's miles of the holy precious stuff. Go down on your miserable knees, as I did, and thank God for it. I didn't make it. I can't give it to you. God thrusts it at you. Were you born blind?'"
Or Paul would ascend the stairs more quietly, and knock.
"May I come in?" he would say, opening the door gently.