"A cousin of mine married a man who knew a gal who used to stand in her birthday suit in front of a lot of young painter chaps-and I'm bound to say he used to declare she was as good a gal as his own wife, especially seeing as how she supported an old father what had got a stroke, and a houseful of young brothers and sisters.

So I'm not saying there's any harm in it.

And I wouldn't stand in your way, sonny, seeing as how you want to get to your 'igh-born parents.

You might find 'em on the road, and then again you mightn't.

And thirty bob a week at fourteen-no-it would be flying in the face of Providence to say 'don't do it! But what licks me is: what the blazes do they want with a little varmint like you?
Why shouldn't they pay thirty bob a week to paint me ?" Paul did not reply, being instinctively averse from wounding susceptibilities.