"All these scratches seem to me to have no meaning," he said dubiously.
Sir Charles stole a contemptuous smile and significant glance at Erskine.

He, seized already with an instinctive antipathy to Trefusis, said emphatically: "There is not one of those scratches that has not a meaning." "That one, for instance, like the limb of a daddy-long-legs.

What does that mean ?" Erskine hesitated a moment; recovered himself; and said: "Obviously enough--to me at least--it indicates the marking of the roadway." "Not a bit of it," said Trefusis.

"There never was such a mark as that on a road.

It may be a very bad attempt at a briar, but briars don't straggle into the middle of roads frequented as that one seems to be--judging by those overdone ruts." He put the etching away, showing no disposition to look further into the portfolio, and remarked, "The only art that interests me is photography." Erskine and Sir Charles again exchanged glances, and the former said: "Photography is not an art in the sense in which I understand the term.
It is a process." "And a much less troublesome and more perfect process than that," said Trefusis, pointing to the etching.