Then when your father is busy you could make copies of some
that please you."
The boy's cheeks were pink and his eyes soft.
"How lovely!" he exclaimed. "Father, may I have it?"
He left the office with the book clasped under his arm. On the way
home, Burton bought him some drawing-paper and pencils. For the
remainder of the afternoon they both worked in silence. Of the two, the
boy was the more completely engrossed. Towards five o'clock Burton made
tea, which they took together. Alfred first carefully washed his hands,
and his manners at table were irreproachable. Burton began to feel
uncomfortable. He felt that the spirit of some older person had come to
him in childlike guise. There was so little to connect this boy with
the Alfred of his recollections. In looking over his work, too, Burton
was conscious of an almost awed sense of a power in this child's fingers
which could have been directed by no ordinary inspiration. From one to
another of those prints, the outlines of which he had committed to
paper, the essential quality of the work, the underlying truth, seemed
inevitably to be reproduced. There were mistakes of perspective and
outline, crudities, odd little touches, and often a failure of
proportion, and yet that one fact always remained.
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