IV
"There is a nouveau here," drawled Laffat, leaning around his easel and addressing his friend Bowles, "there is a nouveau here who is so tender and green and appetizing that Heaven help him if he should fall into a salad bowl."
"Hayseed?" inquired Bowles, plastering in a background with a broken palette-knife and squinting at the effect with approval.
"Yes, Squeedunk or Oshkosh, and how he ever grew up among the daisies and escaped the cows, Heaven alone knows!"
Bowles rubbed his thumb across the outlines of his study to "throw in a little atmosphere," as he said, glared at the model, pulled at his pipe and finding it out struck a match on his neighbour's back to relight it.
"His name," continued Laffat, hurling a bit of bread at the hat-rack, "his name is Hastings. He is a berry.
