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accordance with his arrangement with Hunter, Owen commenced the work in the drawing room on the Monday morning, a fact commented on by Crass when Harlow and Easton, who were distempering some of the ceilings, went down to the scullery to get some more whitewash.

'Well, wot do you think of it?' he said, as he filled their pails.

'Think of what?' asked Easton.

'Why, hour speshul hartist,' replied Crass, with a sneer. 'Do you think 'es goin' to get through with it?'

'Shouldn't like to say,' replied Easton, guardedly.

'You know it's one thing to draw on a bit of paper and colour it with a penny box of paints, and quite another thing to do it on a wall or ceiling,' continued Crass, 'ain't it?'

'Yes, that's true enough,' said Harlow.

'Do you believe they're 'is own designs?' Crass went on.

'Be rather 'ard to tell,' remarked Easton, embarrassed.

Neither Harlow nor Easton shared Grass's sentiments in this matter, but at the same time they could not afford to offend him by sticking up for Owen.

'If you was to ast me, quietly,' Crass added, 'I should be more inclined to say as 'e copied it all out of some book.'

'That's just about the size of it, mate,' agreed Harlow.

'It would be a bit of all right if 'e was to make a bloody mess of it, wouldn't it?' Crass continued, with a malignant leer.

'Not arf!' said Harlow.

When the two men regained the upper landing on which they were working they exchanged significant glances and laughed quietly. Hearing these half suppressed sounds of merriment, Philpot, who was working alone in a room close by put his head out of the doorway. 148