"What painting-room? Where is it?" asked Mat, still in a densely
stupefied condition.
"My painting-room," replied Valentine. "Where you saw the pictures, and
saved Columbus, yesterday."
Mat considered for a moment--then suddenly brightened up, and began to
look quite intelligent again. "I'll come," he said, "as soon as you
like--the sooner the better," clapping his fist emphatically on the
table, and drinking to Valentine with his heartiest nod.
"That's a worthy, good-natured fellow!" cried Mr. Blyth, drinking to
Mat in return, with grateful enthusiasm. "The sooner the better, as you
say. Come to-morrow evening."
"All right. To-morrow evening," assented Mat. His left hand, as he
spoke, began to work stealthily round and round in his pocket, molding
into all sorts of strange shapes, that plastic substance, which had
lain hidden there ever since his shopping expedition in the morning.
"I should have asked you to come in the day-time," continued Valentine;
"but, as you know, Zack, I have the Golden Age to varnish, and one or
two little things to alter in the lower part of Columbus; and then, by
the latter end of the week, I must leave home to do those portraits in
the country which I told you of, and which are wanted before I thought
they would be.
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