I know I can't hammer you as you ought to be hammered, so I give the job to another.

Young Maclagan, for instance----' 'No-o--one half-minute, old man; stick your hand out against the dark of the wall-paper--you only burble and call me names.

That left shoulder's out of drawing.

I must literally throw a veil over that.

Where's my pen-knife?
Well, what about Maclagan ?' 'I only gave him his riding-orders to--to lambast you on general principles for not producing work that will last.' 'Whereupon that young fool,'-- Dick threw back his head and shut one eye as he shifted the page under his hand,--'being left alone with an ink-pot and what he conceived were his own notions, went and spilt them both over me in the papers.