“It is Dick Wilson, despite the gods,” he said.
“You have honored Rodenham—at last.”
“I tramped down from town with my pack on my shoulders.”
“To see the youngster whom you nursed through a fever at Rome.”
They shook hands with great good-will, a sly smile playing about the painter’s rugged face.
“And do you mean to tell me, sir,” he laughed, “that you are not ashamed of such a vagabond? Why, I have been twice in peril of the stocks as I came through from town.”
“Ashamed, Dick!”
The painter indulged in a ludicrous grimace, turned up his brown coat to show the frayed lining thereof, remarked that he had a hole in his breeches, and at the same time brandished his scarlet bundle.
“If your polite pride can stand this, Richard Jeffray,” he said, “then, sir, I will come inside.”
Richard laughed, and put his hand on the painter’s shoulder.