Part 52

"I--hope you don't mind my sitting here," she managed to say. "I wanted to watch the work."

"By all means," he said pleasantly. "Let me get you a chair----"

"No, thank you. I had rather sit th-this way. Please begin and don't mind if I watch you."

The young man appeared to be perplexed.

"I'm afraid," he ventured, "that I may require that table for cutting and----"

"Please--if you don't mind--begin to paste. I am in-intensely interested in p-pasting--I like to w-watch p-paper p-pasted on a w-wall."

Her small teeth chattered in spite of her; she strove to control her voice--strove to collect her wits.

He stood irresolute, rather astonished, too.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but----"

"Please paste; won't you?" she asked.

"Why, I've got to have that table to paste on----"

"Then d-don't think of pasting. D-do anything else; cut out some strips. I am so interested in watching p-paper hangers cut out things--"

"But I need the table for that, too----"

"No, you don't. You can't be a--a very skillful w-workman if you've got to use your table for everything----"

He laughed. "You are quite right; I'm not a skillful paper hanger."

"Then," she said, "I am surprised that you came here to paper our library, and I think you had better go back to your shop and send a competent man."

He laughed again. The paper hanger's youthful face was curiously attractive when he laughed--and otherwise, more or less.

He said: "I came to paper this library because Mr. Carr was in a hurry, and I was the only man in the shop. I didn't want to come. But they made me.... I think they're rather afraid of Mr. Carr in the shop.... And this work must be finished today."

She did not know what to say; anything to keep him away from the table until she could think clearly.

"W-why didn't you want to come?" she asked, fighting for time. "You said you didn't want to come, didn't you?"

"Because," he said, smiling, "I don't like to hang wall paper."

"But if you are a paper hanger by trade----"

"I suppose you think me a real paper hanger?"

She was cautiously endeavoring to free one edge of her skirt; she nodded absently, then subsided, crimsoning, as a faint tearing of cloth sounded.

"Go on," she said hurriedly; "the story of your career is so interesting. You say you adore paper hanging----"

"No, I don't," he returned, chagrined. "I say I hate it."

"Why do you do it, then?"

"Because my father thinks that every son of his who finishes college ought to be disciplined by learning a trade before he enters a profession. My oldest brother, De Courcy, learned to be a blacksmith; my next brother, Algernon, ran a bakery; and since I left Harvard I've been slapping sheets of paper on people's walls----"