to stand in her birthday suit in front of a lot of young painter
chaps-and I'm bound to say he used to declare she was as good a gal
as his own wife, especially seeing as how she supported an old
father what had got a stroke, and a houseful of young brothers and
sisters. So I'm not saying there's any harm in it. And I wouldn't
stand in your way, sonny, seeing as how you want to get to your
'igh-born parents. You might find 'em. on the road, and then again
you mightn't. And thirty bob a week at fourteen-no-it would be
flying in the face of Providence to say 'don't do it! But what licks
me is: what the blazes do they want with a little varmint like you?
Why shouldn't they pay thirty bob a week to paint me?"

Paul did not reply, being instinctively averse from wounding
susceptibilities. But in his heart rose a high pity for the common
though kindly clay that was Barney Bill.



CHAPTER V

WHEN they reached London in November, after circuitous wanderings,
Barney Bill said to Paul: "You've seed enough of me, matey, to know
that I wish yer good and not harm. I've fed yer and I've housed
yer-I can't say as how I've done much toward clothing yer-and three
months on the road has knocked corners off the swell toggery yer
came to me in; but I ain't beat yer or cussed yer more than yer
deserved"--whereat Paul grinned-"and I've spent a lot of valuable
time, when I might have been profitably doing nothing, a-larning yer
of things and, so to speak, completing yer eddication. Is that the
truth, or am I a bloomin' liar?"