your whittling and worrying
and twistin' and too-in' at that painting of yours? What GOOD does it do
you, I should like to know? You'd better be enjoyin' yourself."

"Oh, but," exclaimed Paul, "I made over thirty guineas last year."

"Did you! Well, that's a consideration, but it's nothing to the time you
put in."

"And I've got four pounds owing. A man said he'd give me five pounds if
I'd paint him and his missis and the dog and the cottage. And I went and
put the fowls in instead of the dog, and he was waxy, so I had to
knock a quid off. I was sick of it, and I didn't like the dog. I made a
picture of it. What shall I do when he pays me the four pounds?"

"Nay! you know your own uses for your money," said Mrs. Radford.

"But I'm going to bust this four pounds. Should we go to the seaside for
a day or two?"

"Who?"

"You and Clara and me."

"What, on your money!" she exclaimed, half-wrathful.

"Why not?"

"YOU wouldn't be long in breaking your neck at a hurdle race!" she said.

"So long as I get a good run for my money! Will you?"

"Nay; you may settle that atween you."

"And you're willing?" he asked, amazed and rejoicing.

"You'll do as you like," said Mrs. Radford, "whether I'm willing or
not."

CHAPTER XIII

BAXTER DAWES

SOON after Paul had been to the theatre with Clara, he was drinking
in the Punch Bowl with some friends of his when Dawes came in. Clara's
husband was growing stout; his eyelids were getting slack over his brown
eyes; he was losing his healthy firmness of flesh. He was very evidently
on the downward track. Having quarrelled with his sister, he had gone
into cheap lodgings. His mistress had left him for a man who would marry
her. He had been in prison one night for fighting when he was drunk, and
there was a shady betting episode in which he was concerned.

Paul and he were confirmed enemies, and yet there was between them that
peculiar feeling of intimacy, as if they were secretly near to each
other, which sometimes exists between two people, although they never
speak to one another. Paul often thought of Baxter Dawes, often wanted
to get at him and be friends with him. He knew that Dawes often thought
about him, and that the man was drawn to him by some bond or other. And
yet the two never looked at each other save in hostility.

Since he was a superior employee at Jordan's, it was the thing for Paul
to offer Dawes a drink.

"What'll you have?" he asked of him.

"