The Argosy — page 45: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

32 STORIES FROM ‘THE “Stoo ee eee THE FIVE MR. FYTTONS. By S. E. WALLER. H ERE we all are sitting in the little dining-room—father, mother, Willie Beamish, and I. Willie and I wondering what the dickens we'll do next. It is evening, or rather night. It has rained for days like a waterspout, and Willie and I have done no sketching as yet. He’s down here with me on a visit. Oh! you’ve got to know him, that jovial creature, though he’s always in debt, and always fearing its consequences. He'll sing you the bonniest songs in the world and then show you his etchings, which are at strange variance with himself. He'll pull from a heap of studies a ‘‘ Churchyard Scene,” black and bare; a skeleton yew-tree, a broken-down cottage, and a ruined church. And as with a light in his eye he tells you the title, the ‘“‘ Home of the Sexton,” he takes up another, the ‘ Suicide’s Grave.” He always keeps his favourite till the last. It is a river scene—mid- night. There is ice on the river, ‘There is snow on the ice. The sky is dark and ghastly. The dark of the sky is repeated in the fore- ground by a single black hole in the white snow. Beneath is written, evidently in the most fervid ecstasy, ‘‘ Where they found the body.” “Well,” says Willie, at last: ‘if the weather still keeps bad, I shall wire to town for old Slanter, the model, and get on with my Fal- staff picture.” ‘*Who’s old Slanter ?” says my father. ‘Oh, the best model in London for a bit of low caaiiy Splendid. T’ve had him sit for a ‘ Father Confessor’ too; but every now and then he looked so sly, I fear the odour of sanctity was sadly wanting in my picture. The worst of the old fellow is he is rather fond of whisky, and is not always to be depended on.” ‘Then don’t have him here,” says my mother, hastily. “Oh! he'll be all mght. Ill get him a room in the village ; and if he doesn’t keep sober I won’t pay him.” It turned out fine the next day, and though our sketching ground was a long way off—some six miles—we trudged there every morning and back at night, and worked hard. So hard, that we got our studies of the old mere done long before we had anticipated. Willie Beamish thought it as well to write for Slanter. CONMICLMOOOKS. © m