The Fortunate Youth Part 7

"Nay. 'W. W. Rowlatt, 4, Gray's Inn Square.' I'm noan likely to forget it. I never forget nowt," said Paul, life returning through a vein of boastfulness.

"Tell me all you remember," said Mr. Rowlatt, with a laugh.

"I can say all the Kings of England, with their dates, and the counties and chief towns of Great Britain and Ireland, and all the weights and measures, and 'The a.s.syrian came down like a wolf on the fold--'"

"Holy Moses!" cried Rowlatt. "Anything else?"

"Ay. Lots more," said Paul, anxious to stamp vividly the impression he saw that he was making. "I know the Plagues of Egypt."

"I bet you don't."

"Rivers of Blood, Frogs, Lice, Flies, Murrain, Boils, Hails, Locusts, Darkness and Death of Firstborn," said Paul, in a breath.

"Jehosaphat!" cried Rowlatt. "I suppose now you'd have no difficulty in reciting the Thirty-nine Articles."

Paul puckered his forehead in thought. "D'yo' mean," he asked after a pause, "the Thirty-nine Articles o' Religion, as is in th' Prayerbuk? I ha' tried to read 'em, but couldno' understand 'em reet."

Rowlatt, who had not expected his facetious query to be so answered, stopped his drawing for a moment. "What in the name of goodness attracted you to the Thirty-nine Articles?"

"I wanted to learn about things," said Paul.

The young man looked at him and smiled. "Self-education is a jolly good thing," said he. "Learn all you can, and you'll be a famous fellow one of these days. But you must cultivate a sense of humour."

Paul was about to seek enlightenment as to this counsel when Barney Bill appeared, cool and refreshed, from the inn door, and lifted a cheery voice. "Let's be getting along, sonny."

Rowlatt held up a detaining hand. "Just a couple of minutes, if you can spare them. I've nearly finished."

"All right, sir," said Barney Bill, limping across the yard. "Taking a picture of him?"

The artist nodded. Barney Bill looked over his shoulder. "By Gos.h.!.+" he cried in admiration. "By Gos.h.!.+"

"It has come out rather well, hasn't it?" said the artist, complacently.

"It's the living image of 'im," said Barney Bill.

"He tells me he's going up to London to seek his fortune," said Rowlatt, putting in the finis.h.i.+ng touches.

"And his 'igh-born parents," said Barney Bill, winking at Paul.

Paul flushed and wriggled uncomfortably. Instinct deprecated crude revelation of the mystery of his birth to the man of refinement. He felt that Barney Bill was betraying confidence. Gutter-bred though he was, he accused his vagrant protector of a lack of good taste. Of such a breach he himself, son of princes, could not have been guilty.

Luckily, and, as Paul thought, with admirable tact, Mr. Rowlatt did not demand explanation.

"A young j.a.phet in search of a father. Well, I hope he'll find him.

There's nothing like romance. Without it life is flat and dead. It's what atmosphere is to a picture."

"And onions to a stew," said Barney Bill.

"Quite right," said Rowlatt. "Paul, my boy, I think after all you'd better stick to Mr.--?"

"Barney Bill, sir, at your service. And, if you want a comfortable chair, or an elegant mat, or a hearth brush at a ridiculous cheap price"--he waved toward the van. Rowlatt turned his head and, laughing, looked into the twinkling black eyes. "I don't for a moment expect you to buy, sir, but I was only a-satisfying of my artistic conscience."

Rowlatt shut his sketch-book with a snap, and rose. "Let us have a drink," said he. "Artists should be better acquainted."

He whispered a message to Paul, who sped to the inn and presently returned with a couple of the famous blue and white mugs frothing deliciously at the brims. The men, their lips to the bubbles, nodded to each other. The still beat of the August noon enveloped their bodies, but a streak of heavenly coolness trickled through their souls. Paul, looking at them enviously, longed to be grown up.

Then followed a pleasant half-hour of desultory talk. Although the men did not make him, save for here and there a casual reference, the subject of their conversation, Paul, with the Vision s.h.i.+mmering before his eyes, was sensitive enough to perceive in a dim and elusive way that he was at the back of each man's thoughts and that, for his sake, each was trying to obtain the measure of the other. At last Barney Bill, c.o.c.king at the sun the skilled eye of the dweller in the wilderness, called the time for departure.

"Could I see th' picture?" asked Paul.

Rowlatt pa.s.sed him the sketch-book. The sudden sight of oneself as one appears in another's eyes is always a shock, even to the most sophisticated sitter. To Paul it was uncanny. He had often seen his own reflection and was familiar with his own appearance, but this was the first time that he had looked at himself impersonally. The sketch was vivid, the likeness excellent; the motive, the picturesque and romantic.

A proud lift of the chin, an eager glance in the eye, a sensitive curve of the lip attracted his boyish egotism. The portrait was an ideal, something to live up to. Involuntarily he composed his features.

Barney Bill again called time. Paul surrendered the sketch-book reluctantly. Rowlatt, with a cheery word, handed him the s.h.i.+lling fee.

Paul, than whom none better knew the magic quality of money, hesitated for a second. The boy in the sketch would have refused. Paul drew himself up. "Nay, I'll take noan. I liked doing it."

Rowlatt laughed and pocketed the coin. "All right," said he, with a playful bow. "I'm exceedingly indebted to your courtesy."

Barney Bill gave Paul an approving glance. "Good for you, boy. Never take money you've not earned. Good day to you, sir"--he touched his cap. "And"--with a motion toward the empty mugs--"thank you kindly."

Rowlatt strolled with them to the van, Barney Bill limping a pace or two ahead. "Remember what I told you, my young friend," said he in a low voice. "I don't go back upon my word. I'll help you. But if you're a wise boy and know what's good for you, you'll stick to Mr. Barney Bill and the freedom of the high-road and the light heart of the vagabond. You'll have a devilish sight more happiness in the end."

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 d.a.m.ned if I know."

But Paul jogged along by the side of Barney Bill in no such state of dubiety. G.o.d 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 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?"

Paul, thus challenged, confirmed the absolute veracity of Barney Bill's statement. The latter continued, bending forward, his lean brown hand on the boy's shoulder, and looking at him earnestly: "I took yer away from your 'appy 'ome because, though the 'ome might have been 'appy in its own sweet way, you wasn't. I wanted to set yer on the track of yer 'ighborn parents. I wanted to make a man of yer. I want to do the best for yer now, so I put it to yer straight: If yer likes to come along of me altogether, I'll pay yer wages on the next round, and when yer gets a little older I'll take yer into partners.h.i.+p and leave yer the business when I die. It's a man's life and a free life, and I think yer likes it, don't yer?"

"Ay," said Paul, "it's foine."

"On the other hand, as I said afore, I won't stand in yer way, and if yer thinks you'll get nearer to your 'igh-born parents by hitching up with Mr. Architect, well--you're old enough to choose. I leave it to you."