And, standing beside a dilapidated chair from which he had
evidently risen at the sound of the door bell, with a dripping
paint brush in one hand and a wooden sailor in the other, there was
a man. When he saw who his visitor was he sat down again.
He was a tall man and, as the chair he sat in was a low one and the
heels of his large shoes were hooked over its lower rounds, his
knees and shoulders were close together when he bent over his work.
He was a thin man and his trousers hung about his ankles like a
loose sail on a yard. His hair was thick and plentiful, a brown
sprinkled with gray at the temples. His face was smooth-shaven,
with wrinkles at the corners of the eyes and mouth. He wore
spectacles perched at the very end of his nose, and looked down
over rather than through them as he dipped the brush in the can of
paint beside him on the floor.
"Hello, Shavin's," hailed Mr. Bearse, blithely.
The tall man applied the brush to the nude pine legs of the wooden
sailor. One side of those legs were modestly covered forthwith by
a pair of sky-blue breeches. The artist regarded the breeches
dreamily. Then he said:
"Hello, Gab."
His voice was a drawl, very deliberate, very quiet, rather soft and
pleasant. But Mr. Bearse was not pleased.
"Don't call me that," he snapped.
The brush was again dipped in the paint pot and the rear elevation
of the pine sailor became sky-blue like the other side of him.
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