all the hues of the
rainbow; so are those of his assistants, one of them unconsciously
having decorated himself with a blue nose. The centre of the room is
occupied by huge tables, on which stand earthen pots containing paint by
the half-gallon, and brushes of all shapes and sizes. Indeed, some of
the brushes will hold two pounds weight of paint at a single dip, and
Mr. Craven's implement for sketching in outlines is a thick stick of
charcoal fastened on a long pole. The artist's method of painting is to
walk to the centre tables, take a huge dip of paint, and speed back
again to his canvas, which represents a huge ash tree. Mr. Craven,
besides sporting as much woad on his person as an ancient Briton, wears
a white handkerchief round his brows. When he is very much pressed for
time, he exchanges this handkerchief for a red one, and the joke goes
round that this means blood. As it is impossible to carry heavy pots of
paint about all day, Mr. Craven really performs a kind of "sentry-go,"
painting as he goes. One curious fact is that his colours dry very
quickly about two shades lighter than when they are wet. After Mr.
Craven has covered a certain amount of space, he motions to the boy at
the winch, and the whole vast canvas moves slowly up some two or three
feet. Mr. Craven, in addition to his artistic knowledge, is a perfect
ambulatory encyclopaedia, his work requiring an intimate acquaintance
with architecture, botany, history. He is, above all things, an artist,
with an intimate knowledge of the shapes, the hues, the seasons of
flowers, the colours and habits of birds, the tints of leaves, their
varied forms, and the other thousand and one things which he is called
upon to depict at a moment's notice. The rapidity with which he works is
simply marvellous. "So sorry I can't talk much," he says; "but I had
fourteen hours of it yesterday, and my feet are beginning to give out."
"You ought to join the eight hours' movement, Mr. Craven." Mr. Craven
makes a semi-circular sweep with a huge brush, the point of which lights
on a pendulous ash bough. "Eight hours!" he echoes with genial scorn.
"Why, if I did, my profession would (dab! dab! dab!) cease (dab! dab!
dab!) to (dab!) exist for me"; and the naked bough is clad in graceful
foliage with magical rapidity.

[Illustration: MISS TERRY AND MR. TERRISS RUN THROUGH THEIR SCENE.]

One evening, it is announced that for a couple of days Mr. Irving will
not play. Before he has f