"Then go to it," says I. "I'll get a yearly rate from a pressing club to keep the spots off me. I'll bet you could do swell pictures."

"I know!" says Vee, clappin' her hands. "I'll begin with a portrait of you. Let me try sketching in your head now."

That's the way Vee generally goes at things—with a rush. Say, she had me sittin' with my chin up and my arms draped in one position until I had a neck-ache that ran clear to my heels.

"Hal-lup!" says I, when both feet was sound asleep and my spine felt ossified. "Couldn't I put on a sub while I   drew a long breath?"

At that she lets me off, and after a fifth-innin' stretch I'm called round to pass on the result.

"Hm-m-m!" says I, starin' at what she's done to a perfectly good piece of stretched canvas.

"Well, what does it look like?" demands Vee.

"Why," says I, "I should call it sort of a cross between the Kaiser and Billy Sunday."

"Torchy!" says Vee. "I—I think you're just horrid!"

For a whole week she sticks to it industrious, jottin' down studies of various parts of my map while I'm eatin'   breakfast, and workin' over 'em until I come back from the office in the afternoon. Did I throw out any more comic cracks? Never a one—not even when the picture showed that my eyes toed in. All I did was pat her on the back and say she was a wonder. But say, I got so I dreaded to look at the thing.

"You know your hair isn't really red," says Vee; "it—it's such an odd shade."

"Sort of triple pink, eh?" says I.

She squeezes out some more paints, stirs 'em vigorous, and makes another stab. This time she gets a bilious lavender with streaks of fire-box red in it.

"Bother!" says she, chuckin' away the brushes. "What's the use pretending I'm an artist when I'm not? Look at that hideous mess! It's too awful for words. Take away that fire-screen, will you, Torchy?"

And, with the help of a few matches and a sportin' extra, we made quite a cheerful little blaze in the coal grate.

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