"But how will you see your canvas?"
"Have a bloomin' cop's——" began Mr. Watkins, rising too quickly to the question, and then realizing this, bawled to Miss Durgan for another glass of beer. "I'm goin' to have a thing called a dark lantern," he said to Porson.
"But it's about new moon now," objected Porson. "There won't be any moon."
"There'll be the house," said Watkins, "at any rate. I'm goin', you see, to paint the house first and the moon afterward."
"Oh!" said Porson, too staggered to continue the conversation.
Toward sunset next day Mr. Watkins, virgin canvas, easel, and a very considerable case of other appliances in hand, strolled up the pleasant pathway through the beech-woods to Hammerpond Park, and pitched his apparatus in a strategic position commanding the house. Here he was observed by Mr. Raphael Sant, who was returning across the park from a study of the chalk-pits. His curiosity having been fired by Porson's account of the new arrival, he turned aside with the idea of discussing nocturnal art.
Mr. Watkins was mixing color with an air of great industry. Sant, approaching more nearly, was surprised to see the color in question was as harsh and brilliant an emerald green as it is possible to imagine. Having cultivated an extreme sensibility to color from his earliest years, he drew the air in sharply between his teeth at the very first glimpse of this brew. Mr. Watkins turned round. He looked annoyed.
"What on earth are you going to do with that beastly green?" said Sant.
Mr. Watkins realized that his zeal to appear busy in the eyes of the butler had evidently betrayed him into some technical error. He looked at Sant and hesitated.
"Pardon my rudeness," said Sant; "but, really, that green is altogether too amazing. It came as a shock. What do you mean to do with it?"