But he shook his head.

“A man’s only a definite amount of force in him, Pudgie,” he said, “and if he spends it in one way he goes short in another.  Mine goes—­there.”  He glanced at the statue.  “I rarely sleep now,” he added.

“Then you ought to see a doctor,” I said, a bit alarmed. (I’d felt sure he was ill.)

“No, no, Pudgie.  My force is all going there—­all but the minimum that can’t be helped, you know....  You’ve heard artists talk about ’putting their soul into their work,’ Pudgie?”

“Don’t rub it in about my rotten miniatures, Benlian,” I asked him.

“You’ve heard them say that; but they’re charlatans, professional artists, all, Pudgie.  They haven’t got any souls bigger than a sixpence to put into it....  You know, Pudgie, that Force and Matter are the same thing—­that it’s decided nowadays that you can’t define matter otherwise than as ’a point of Force’?”

“Yes,” I found myself saying eagerly, as if I’d heard it dozens of times before.

“So that if they could put their souls into it, it would be just as easy for them to put their bodies into it?...”

I had drawn very close to him, and again—­it was not fancy—­I felt as if somebody, not me, was using my mouth.  A flash of comprehension seemed to come into my brain.

“Not that, Benlian?” I cried breathlessly.

He nodded three or four times, and whispered.  I really don’t know why we both whispered.

“Really that, Benlian?” I whispered again.

“Shall I show you?...  I tried my hardest not to, you know,...” he still whispered.

“Yes, show me!” I replied in a suppressed voice.

“Don’t breathe a sound then!  I keep them up there....”

He put his finger to his lips as if we had been two conspirators; then he tiptoed across the studio and went up to his bedroom in the gallery.  Presently he tiptoed down again, with some rolled-up papers in his hand.  They were photographs, and we stooped together over a little table.  His hand shook with excitement.

“You remember this?” he whispered, showing me a rough print.

It was one of the prints from the fogged plates that I’d taken after that first night.

“Come closer to me if you feel frightened, Pudgie,” he said.  “You said they were old plates, Pudgie.  No no; the plates were all right; it’s I who am wrong!”

“Of course,” I said.  It seemed so natural.

“This one,” he said, taking up one that was numbered “1,” “is a plain photograph, in the flesh, before it started; you know!  Now look at this, and this—­”

He spread them before me, all in order.

“2” was a little fogged, as if a novice had taken it; on “3” a sort of cloudy veil partly obliterated the face; “4” was still further smudged and lost; and “5” was a figure with gloved hands held up, as a man holds his hands up when he is covered by a gun.  The face of this one was completely blotted out.