If it were not for the rest of us he'd be a pauper in six months." Paul Pettingill, to his own intense surprise and, it must be said, consternation, was engaged to redecorate certain rooms according to a plan suggested by the tenant.

The rising young artist, in a great flurry of excitement, agreed to do the work for $500, and then blushed like a schoolgirl when he was informed by the practical Brewster that the paints and material for one room alone would cost twice as much.
"Petty, you have no more idea of business than a goat," criticised Montgomery, and Paul lowered his head in humble confession.

"That man who calcimines your studio could figure on a piece of work with more intelligence than you reveal.

I'll pay $2,500.

It's only a fair price, and I can't afford anything cheap in this place." "At this rate you won't be able to afford anything," said Pettingill to himself.
And so it was that Pettingill and a corps of decorators soon turned the rooms into a confusion of scaffoldings and paint buckets, out of which in the end emerged something very distinguished.