the useful artisan who is subject to lead-poisoning.
There was no indication of his profession in the attire of Mr. Tabor,
unless the too apparent age of his black felt hat and a neat patch at
the elbow of his shiny, old brown overcoat might have been taken as
symbols of the sacrifice to his muse which his life had been. He was
not a constant attendant of the conclave, and when he came it was
usually to listen; indeed, he spoke so seldom that at the sound of his
voice they all turned to him with some surprise.

"I suppose," he began, "that Eskew means the devil is behind all
beautiful things."

"Ugly ones, too," said Mr. Arp, with a start of recollection. "And I
wish to state--"

"Not now!" Colonel Flitcroft turned upon him violently. "You've
already stated it."

"Then, if he is behind the ugly things, too," said Roger, "we must take
him either way, so let us be glad of the beauty for its own sake.
Eskew says this is a wicked town. It may be--I don't know. He says
it's badly built; perhaps it is; but it doesn't seem to me that it's
ugly in itself. I don't know what its real self is, because it wears
so many aspects. God keeps painting it all the time, and never shows
me twice the same picture; not even two snowfalls are just alike, nor
the days that follow them; no more than two misty sunsets are
alike--for the color and even the form of the town you call ugly are a
matter of the season of the year and of the time of day and of the
light and air. The ugly town is like an endless gallery which you can
walk through, from year-end to year-end, never seeing the same canvas
twice, no matter how much you may want to--and there's the pathos of
it. Isn't it the same with people with the characters of all of us,
just as it is with our faces? No face remains the same for two
successive days--"

"It don't?" Colonel Flitcroft interrupted, with an explosive and rueful
incredulity. "Well, I'd like to--" Second thoughts came to him almost
immediately, and, as much out of gallantry as through discretion,
fearing that he might be taken as thinking of one at home, he relapsed
into silence.

Not so with the others. It was as if a firecracker had been dropped
into a sleeping poultry-yard. Least of all could Mr. Arp contain
himself. At the top of his voice, necessarily, he agreed with Roger
that faces changed, not only from day to day, and not only because of
light and air and such things, but from hour to hour, and fr