But Paul, who already looked upon his gipsy self as dead as his
Bludston self, and these dead selves as stepping-stones to higher
things, turned a deaf ear to his new friend's paradoxical
philosophy. "I'll remember," said he. "Mr. W. W. Rowlatt, 4, Gray's
Inn Square."

The young architect watched the van with its swinging, creaking
excrescences lumber away down the hot and dusty road, and turned
with a puzzled expression to his easel. Joy in the Little Bear Inn
had for the moment departed. Presently he found himself scribbling a
letter in pencil to his brother, the Royal Academician.

"So you see, my dear fellow," he wrote toward the end of the
epistle, "I am in a quandary. That the little beggar is of startling
beauty is undeniable. That he has got his bill agape, like a young
bird, for whatever food of beauty and emotion and knowledge comes
his way is obvious to any fool. But whether, in what I propose, I'm
giving a helping hand to a kind of wild genius, or whether I'm
starting a vain boy along the primrose path in the direction of
everlasting bonfire, I'm damned if I know."

But Paul jogged along by the side of Barney Bill in no such state of
dubiety. God was in His Heaven, arranging everything for his
especial benefit. All was well with the world where dazzling
destinies like his were bound to be fulfilled.

"I've heard of such things," said Barney Bill with a reflective
twist of his head, when Paul had told him of Mr. Rowlatt's
suggestion. "A cousin of mine married a man who knew a gal who used