“Don’t go just yet. I have not half finished. Here is what I have to propose. Give up your room and come with me. You see the great advantage I have over you is that I can wait. If a magazine asked me to do black and white work for it, I would say, ‘No, go to those poor devils who must have work or starve. I’m working for the future, not for the present!’ That’s what I’d say. Now I’ll give you a bedroom, rent free, and a corner of this studio. It won’t cost you a penny--nor your board either. You can paint just what you like, and not what the public demands. Then you will be independent.” “We have different views about things, Barney. That would seem to me the worst form of dependence. It is very generous of you, but utterly impracticable; besides, you haven’t thought of the danger of my becoming a mere copyist of you--a shadow of the new individualist. I couldn’t risk that, you know.” “Better become the shadow of one man, than a shadow of many, which you are now.” “Perhaps; but we each must hoe our own row in our own way. Good-by, Barney.” Haldiman went down-stairs, not cheered as much as might have been expected by Hope’s overflowing good nature and generosity. He met Barney’s mother on the stairs, who gave him a head-to-foot glance of evident disapproval. She did not admire the set with whom her son had thrown in his lot, and feared their influence on him would not be beneficial. “Oh, mater!” cried Barney, when she entered. “I did not expect you to-day. How did you find the place?” His mother raised her lorgnette to her eyes and surveyed the room in silence. “So this is the studio, Barnard,” she said, at last. “I don’t think much of it. Why is it all untidy like this?--or haven’t you had time to get it in order yet?” “This is the kind of thing we artists go in for, mater. It is as much in order as it ever will be.” “Then I don’t like it. Why could you not have had a man in to lay one carpet as it should be laid? These rugs, all scattered about in this careless way, trip one up so. What’s this old iron for?” “That’s armour, mater.” “Oh, is it? I don’t see how any one can do useful work in a room like this, still I suppose it is good enough to paint in. I found the place easily enough. Trust a neighbourhood to know where there is any extra foolishness going on. Of course you have been cheated in everything you bought. But that’s neither here nor there. I came to talk with you about the business.” “What business, mater?” “What business? _The_ business, of course. Your father’s business and yours, for I hope the time will come when you will take more interest in it than you do now. The men, it seems, talk of going on strike.”