Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/200

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ing him to wonder whether it was business or his brunette which he preferred. One, assuredly, gave edge to the other; even his relations with Vera were now sufficiently oblique to interest him.

I hope it isn't a stenographer, Paul, John Armstrong hinted darkly. You know what I told you.

What does she do, anyway, Paul? Jack Draycott demanded.

Yes, what does she do? the crowd inquired in chorus.

Paul grinned. She paints, he replied.

Paints! Good God, they all do! Florizel howled. Paints! That's a good one! Another song had occurred to him:

Her lips are two bumpers of clary,
Who drinks of them sure he'll miscarry—
Her breasts of delight
Are two bumpers of white,
And her eyes are two cups of canary!

Wintergreen Waterbury was not actually a painter. To be sure, she cherished ambitions, based on no known talents, to wield the brush, but her career, up to date, had been that of artists' model. She had frequently been heard to remark, however, while Harrison Fisher or Rolf Armstrong was engaged in making a replica of her pretty face, I could do that if I wanted to, or You'll have to get a new model soon, I'm going to open a studio of my own. A curious