“Pure ultramarine blue, you see,” commented the master, “and the light brings out its richness, though if you looked at the paper, you’d be puzzled to find any blue in it. That’s because the infinitely fine atoms of the colour would want a microscope to see their separate particles. Yet where the pulp sank to the depths of the mould, they collected in millions to give you those deep shadows.” Kellock delayed at the copy of a statue: the Venus Victrix from Naples—a work which certainly reproduced the majesty of the original in a rounded, lustrous fashion that no reproduction on the flat could echo. “We can’t beat that, though it is fifty years old,” declared Kellock. “We’re going to, however; and another statue is my idea. Marble comes out grandly as you see. I’m out for black and white, not colour. I’ve an idea we can get something as fine as the old masters of engraving, and finer.” “The vatman is nought for this work,” confessed Kellock. “He makes paper in his mould and that’s all there is to it—whether for printing, or writing, or painting. The man who matters is him who makes the mould.” “But we can help him; we can experiment at the vat and in the beating engine. We can go one better in the pulp; and the stroke counts at the vat. I reckon your stroke will be invaluable to work the pulp into every cranny of such moulds as I’m thinking about.” “I’ll do my best; so will Dingle; but how many men in England are there who could make such moulds as these to-day?” “Three,” replied Trenchard. “But I want better moulds. I’m hopeful that Michael Thorn of London will rise to it. I go to see him next week, and we put in a morning at the British Museum to find a statue worthy of the occasion.” “I can see a wonderful thing in my mind’s eye already,” declared Kellock. “Can you? Well, I never can see anything in my mind’s eye and rest content for an hour, till I set about the way to see it with my body’s eye.” “We all know that, Mr. Trenchard.” “Here’s my favourite,” declared the other, holding up a massive head of Abraham Lincoln. “Now that’s a great work in my judgment and if we beat that in quality, we shall produce a water-mark picture worth talking about.” “You ought to show all these too,” said Jordan Kellock. “I shall—if I beat them; not if they beat me,” replied the other. “I wanted you to see what my father and grandfather could do, so that you may judge what we’re up against. But they’re going to be beaten at Dene, or else I’ll know the reason why.” “It’s good to see such things and worth while trying to beat them,” answered the vatman. “To improve upon the past is the business of every honest man in my opinion,” declared Trenchard. “That’s what we’re here for; and that’s what I’ve done, I believe, thanks to a lot of clever people here who have helped me to do it and share what credit there may be. But I don’t claim credit, Ned. It’s common duty for every man with brains in his head to help push the craft along.”