Pen Pricks 



a dump, and be hard at work on a prospect of 

 the backs of houses, of tumbled shanties, and old 

 sheds. No use to put on a good front. He wiU 

 catch your city from the rear. 



So at least he caught my garden. It was a 

 sketch made at my request and to accompany a 

 fantasy for Country Life. Not hard to imagine 

 the kind that I desired. Some corner of my own 

 half-acre that could be entered in a competition 

 with a fine estate. Now he had skiU at omissions. 

 Wouldn't he be willing, just by the mere blank- 

 ness of the paper, to tell a convenient white lie? 

 Let the pathway trail off to a distant prospect, 

 and couldn't the whole thing at the edges be left 

 a little vague? In other words, I had been a 

 braggart with my tongue and with his hand, I 

 expected him to help me out. 



He promised solemnly and disappeared. For 

 a good two hours, whenever I peered cautiously 

 between the curtains, I saw his white cap gleam- 

 ing in the distance. Then in he came. At first 

 he would not let me see his handiwork. It must 

 not be grabbed and regarded at close range. A 

 shade was drawn, another shade pulled up until 



[25] 



