VI. — A COMMISSION AS COLOURMAN
As Murrel gazed there gradually grew upon his mind (which was perhaps clearing itself rather slowly of many festive fumes) the sense of one result of his nonsensical nocturnal expedition or experiment in the education of revolutionists. He had been out all night and had seen nothing of what had lately been happening to his friends and their theatricals. But he remembered that it was almost exactly at this moment of the morning, with its long, fine tapering shadows and faint, far-flung flush of dawn, that he had abandoned his painting of the scenery and plunged into the library in pursuit of the librarian. He had left the librarian at the top of the ladder a little more than twenty-four hours ago. And here was the ladder thrown away like lumber in the garden
