"I crossed over and says, 'Who are ye lookin' for'? And he hands me the card. 'I'm his man,' I says, 'and I been waitin' for ye--me master's sick and don't want no noise, and if ye make any I'll lose me place. I'll carry the bag up and dump it and bring ye the bag back and, shillin' for yer trouble. Wait here. Hold on,' I says; 'take me hat and let me have yours, for I don't git a good hat every day, and the bag's that dirty it'll spile it.' "'Go on,' he says; 'I've carried it all the way from the yard and me back's broke.' Well, I pulled his hat ever me eyes and started up the stairs wid the bag on me shoulder. When I got to the fust landin' I run me hands over the bag, gittin' 'em good and black, then I smeared me face, and up I went another flight. "'Who's there?' he says, when I knocked. "'Coals,' I says. "'Where from?' he says. "I told him the name on the card. He opened the door an inch and I could see a chain between the crack. "'Let me see yer face,' he says. I twisted it out from under the edge of the bag. 'All right,' he says, and he slipped back the chain and in I went, stoopin' down as if it weighed a ton. "'Where'll I put it?' I says. "'In the box,' he says, walkin' toward the grate. 'Have ye brought the bill?' "'I have,' I says, still keepin' me head down. 'It's in me side pocket. Pull it out, please, me hand's that dirty'--and out come the writ! "Ye ought to have seen his face when he read it. He made a jump for the door, but I got there fust and downstairs in a tumble, and fell in a heap at the foot with everything he could lay his hands on comin' after me--tongs, shovel, and poker. "I got a raise of five bob when I went back and ten bob besides from the boss. "I ought to have stayed at the law, sor; I'd be a magistrate by now a-sittin' on a sheepskin instead of ------ "Where'll I put this big canvas, sor--up agin the bow or laid flat? The last coat ain't dry yet," he muttered to himself, touching my picture with his finger in true paper-hanger style. "Oh, yes, I see--all ready, sor, ye kin step in. Same place we painted yesterday, sor?--up near the mill? All right, sor." And we pushed out into the stream. These talks with Fin are like telephone messages from the great city hardly an hour away. They always take place in the open, while I am floating among pond-lilies or drifting under wide-spreading trees, their drooping leaves dabbling in the silent current like children's fingers, or while I am sitting under skies as blue as any that bend above my Beloved City by the Sea; often, too, when the delicious silence about me is broken only by the lapping of the water around my punt, the sharpening of a bit of charcoal, or the splash of a fish. That his stories are out of key with my surroundings, often reminding me of things I have come miles over the sea to forget, somehow adds to their charm.