Paul, looking at them enviously, longed to be grown up.
Then followed a pleasant half-hour of desultory talk.

Although the men did not make him, save for here and there a casual reference, the subject of their conversation, Paul, with the Vision shimmering before his eyes, was sensitive enough to perceive in a dim and elusive way that he was at the back of each man's thoughts and that, for his sake, each was trying to obtain the measure of the other.

At last Barney Bill, cocking at the sun the skilled eye of the dweller in the wilderness, called the time for departure.
"Could I see th' picture ?" asked Paul.
Rowlatt passed him the sketch-book.

The sudden sight of oneself as one appears in another's eyes is always a shock, even to the most sophisticated sitter.

To Paul it was uncanny.