“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 partnership 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.”