‘Well, what is it’ cried this worthy, snappishly.
‘Who do you want?’
Uncle Luke took off his hat respectfully, and handed over the paper. Strange to say, the boy would not deign to inspect it.
‘If it’s the milk bill, you’re to call again next week. If it’s a summons, nobody ain’t at home. Which of the gents is it for?’
‘I’m a-looking for Master White,’ said Uncle Luke, timidly, ‘and if you please——’
‘But he don’t please,’ answered the boy, with a fierce sense of grievance. ‘He ain’t at home. Didn’t you see the paper on that there door?’
At this juncture another head appeared in the background, and a pair of human eyes seemed rapidly to inspect the intruders. Then a voice said—
‘It’s all right, Judas. Let ’em come in.’
Thus instructed, the page threw open the door, and Uncle Luke entered, with Madeline clinging to him. Their astonishment was considerable when they found themselves in a large apartment, lighted by glass windows from above, and full of all the paraphernalia of an artist’s workshop—several easels, two or three lay figures, paintings in various states of completion. In one corner stood a stove, on the top of which was a loaf of brown bread and a tin coffee pot, and close to the stove was a perfect hecatomb of egg-shells. Indeed, what with general dust and debris of all kinds, the entire ‘studio’ seemed sadly in need of cleaning out.
Fronting them as they entered was the only tenant of the apartment—a young man with a very light moustache, a watery blue eye, and a large amount of unkempt flaxen hair. He grasped a palette in one hand, a paint brush in the other, and in his mouth he held a black meerschaum pipe.