That happened three hundred years ago; but for Tiki-pu the story was as fresh
and true as if it had happened yesterday. When he was left to himself in the
studio, all alone and locked up for the night, Tiki-pu used to go and stare at
the picture till it was too dark to see, and at the little palace with the
door in its wall by which Wio-wani had disappeared out of life. Then his soul
would go down into his finger-tips, and he would knock softly and fearfully at
the beautifully painted door, saying, "Wio-wani, are you there?"

Little by little in the long-thinking nights, and the slow early mornings when
light began to creep back through the papered windows of the studio, Tiki-pu's
soul became too much for him. He who could strain paper, and grind colours,
and wash brushes, had everything within reach for becoming an artist, if it
was the will of fate that he should be one.

He began timidly at first, but in a little while he grew bold. With the first
wash of light he was up from his couch on the hard floor, and was daubing his
soul out on scraps, and odds-and-ends, and stolen pieces of rice-paper.

Before long the short spell of daylight which lay between dawn and the arrival
of the apprentices to their work did not suffice him. It took him so long to
hide all traces of his doings, to wash out the brushes, and rinse clean the
paint-pots he had used, and on the top of that to get the studio swept and
dusted, that there was hardly time left him in which to indulge the itching
appetite in his fingers.

Driven by necessity, he became a pilferer of candleÄends, picking them from
their sockets in the lanterns which the students carried on dark nights. Now
and then one of these would remember that, when last used, his lantern had had
a candle in it, and would accuse Tiki-pu of having stolen it. "It is true," he