She hazarded this sympathetically, never having heard of a theory. It sounded to her like the name of an internal growth, possibly malignant. "Not half bad," he assured her. He was cheerful about it, at any rate. "I'm what they call an Impressionist. A man--I put it to you--has got to hustle after culture in these days and take it, so to speak, in tabloids. Now this morning, before you came along, I'd struck a magnificent notion. As I dare say you've been told, the way to get at the essence of a landscape is to half-close your eyes--you get the dominant notes that way, and shed the details. Well, I allowed I'd go one better, and see the whole show in motion. Have you ever seen a biograph--or a cinematograph, as some call it?" "'Course I 'ave," said Tilda. "There was one in Maggs's Circus." "Then you'll have no trouble in getting the hang of my idea. My complaint with Art is that it don't keep itself abreast of modern inventions. The cinematograph, miss, has come to stay, and the Art of the future, unless Art means to get left, will have to adopt its principles . . . Well, I couldn't put Shakespeare's country into motion; but on the river I could put myself in motion, which amounts to the same thing. With the cinematograph, I grant you, it's mostly the scene that's that in motion while _you_ sit still; but there's also a dodge by which _you're_ in the railway car and flying past the scenery." Tilda nodded. "Maggs 'ad 'old of that trick too. 'E called it _A Trip on the Over'ead Railway, New York._" "Right; and now you see. I allowed that by steering down Avon and keeping my eyes half closed, by the time I reached Tewkesbury I'd have Shakespeare's environment all boiled down and concentrated; and at Tewkesbury I 'd stop and slap in the general impression while it was fresh. But just here I ran my head full-butt against another principle of mine, which is _plein air_." "Wot's that?" "Why, that a landscape should be painted where it stands, and not in the studio." "You couldn' very well paint with one 'and an' paddle with the other," she began; but added in a moment, "Why there's Arthur Miles, o' course! doin', as ush'al, while the others are talkin'. That child brings luck w'erever 'e goes." "You think that I could change places and trust him to steer." "Think? Why for the las' ten minutes 'e _'as_ been steerin'?" So below Cleeve they changed places, Mr. Jessup settling himself amidships with his apparatus for sketching, while Arthur Miles was promoted--if the word may be allowed--to the seat astern. For a while he took his new responsibility gravely, with pursed lips and eyes intent on every stroke of the paddle, watching, experimenting, as a turn of the wrist more or less righted or deflected the steering. But in a few minutes he had gained confidence, and again his gaze removed itself from the swirl around the blade and began to dwell on the reaches ahead.