"I don’t remember, not clearly," responded Mr. Boyle.... "I know I laughed. It seemed so queer for anything to rip right through a person’s trouser-leg and not go near ’is sock." *XXIV* *MORE OF PRUDENCE* Prudence and midday post arrived together at Baffin’s washhouse on the day appointed for her second stance. "Oo-er, Mr. Baffin," was her greeting: "_I_ got your letters. Gimme the stamps, wown’t you? Me an’ my friend we allus c’lect stamps. We ain’t gointer stop till we got ten thousand, and then we’re gointer make a bonfire when my mother’s out. ’Ere, an’ I ain’t bin ’avin’ _’arf_ a lark with your postman, Mr. Baffin. Oo, an’ the conductor on the bus what I come by, ’e wasn’t ’arf drunk, I tell you. I was frightened, I was, ’cos my father useder git drunk, an’ once ’e bit my mother. ’E _was_ a bad man, my father, an’ they made ’im go out an’ be a soldier in Egypt, an’ ’e got the fever in ’is ’ead, an’ we got a picture of ’im at ’ome before ’e was buried, an’ you ought to see the funny black man a-settin’ alongside of ’im. ’Ere, I’m all in a knot at the back, Mr. Baffin: arst your friend to undo me. An’ don’t you foget to keep them stamps, an’ I spoge it’s the chin agen, an’ I ’ope you’ve remembered the muffins!" "Yes," responded Baffin, "I remembered to get the muffins, and I’ve also remembered to get an empty flour-sack. Know what that’s for?" Prudence shook her head—gravely, wonderingly. "To smother up tiresome girls in that _will_ wriggle and _will_ talk," explained Baffin. "He! he!" giggled Prudence. "Wown’t tie up _me_, I know. ’Cos if you was to do that you couldn’t paint me. See?" She gurgled with triumph. "And now," said Baffin, "it is time to leave off playing. Sit up, like a good girl, and keep quiet. Get rid of that bull’s-eye." "Yes," said Prudence. And the lollipop was "got rid of" of by a simple and effective means. "I _should_ laugh if someone was to tread on it," observed Prudence. "If my mother was to see—— Oo-er, Mr. Baffin, down’t ’oller at me, please, Mr. Baffin. I _will_ be good, I will; on’y, if you look like that I shall cry, ’Cos you frighten me." Silence reigned for a little space, whilst Prudence, with clenched hands, maintained an attitude of strenuous repose. Baffin’s actions alternated between brief and seemingly motiveless dabs at his canvas, and a critical inspection of his model, for the purposes of which he spread out his legs and wagged his head—slowly and pensively, from side to side—like an elderly cockerel surveying the domestic landscape. This proceeding terminated in a sigh that had all the eloquence of a shout, and Baffin pounced, as it were, upon his canvas.