with
reverent grovellings. When he dared to look up again Wio-wani stood
over him big and fine; just within the edge of his canvas he stood and
reached out a hand.

"Come along with me, Tiki-pu!" said the great one. "If you want to know
how to paint I will teach you."

"Oh, Wio-wani, were you there all the while?" cried Tiki-pu
ecstatically, leaping up and clutching with his smeary little puds the
hand which the old man extended to him.

"I was there," said Wio-wani, "looking at you out of my little window.
Come along in!"

Tiki-pu took a heave and swung himself into the picture, and fairy
capered when he found his feet among the flowers of Wio-wani's beautiful
garden. Wio-wani had turned, and was ambling gently back to the door of
his palace, beckoning to the small one to follow him; and there
stood Tiki-pu, opening his mouth like a fish to all the wonders that
surrounded him. "Celestiality, may I speak?" he said suddenly.

"Speak," replied Wio-wani; "what is it?"

"The Emperor, was he not the very flower of fools not to follow when you
told him?"

"I cannot say," answered Wio-wani, "but he certainly was no artist."

Then he opened the door, that door which he had so beautifully painted,
and led Tiki-pu in. And outside the little candle-end sat and guttered
by itself, till the wick fell overboard, and the flame kicked itself
out, leaving the studio in darkness and solitude to wait for the
growings of another dawn.

It was full day before Tiki-pu reappeared; he came running down the
green path in great haste, jumped out of the frame on to the studio
floor, and began tidying up his own messes of the night and the
apprentices' of the previous day. Only just in time did he have things
ready by the hour when his master and the others returned to their work.

All that day they kept scratching their left ears, and could not think
why; but Tiki-pu knew, for he was saying over to himself all the things
that Wio-wani, the great painter, had been saying about them and their
precious productions. And as he ground their colours for them and washed
their brushes, and filled his famished little body with the breadcrumbs
they threw away, little they guessed from what an immeasurable distance
he looked down upon them all, and had Wio-wani's word for it tickling
his right ear all the day long.

Now before long Tiki-pu's master noticed a change in him; and though he
bullied him, and thrashed him, and did all that a careful