When at ten minutes past six the studio bell tinkled, Kenny, opening the door, stared at Whitaker in tragic dismay and struck himself upon the forehead.

“Mother of Men!” he groaned.  “I thought of course it would be Reynolds.  He’s bringing me a check.”

John Whitaker looked unimpressed.  He merely blinked his recognition of a subterfuge.

There was a parallel in his experience, a weekend arrival at Woodstock when Kenny, farming in a flurry of enthusiasm, had come riding down to meet his guest on a singular quadruped whose area of hide had thickened strangely.  Brian called the uncurried quadruped a plush horse.  Kenny, remembered Whitaker, had searched with tragic eyes for an invited editor who had recklessly agreed to pay in advance for an excursion of Kenny’s into illustrating, ostensibly to pay for a cow.  And Kenny’s words had been:  “My God, Whitaker!  Where’s Graham?” Moreover he had struck himself fiercely on the forehead and Whitaker had grub-staked his host to provisions until Graham arrived.

“Can’t we eat in the grill?” asked Whitaker.  “It’s raining.”  Kenny regarded him with a look of pained intelligence.

“I’m posted,” he said.

“Then,” said Whitaker, “I’ll go out and buy something.  I’d rather eat in the studio.  What’ll I get?”

Kenny capriciously banned oysters.

“If you want a rarebit,” he added, “we have some cheese.”

He was still searching excitedly for the cheese when Whitaker returned.

“Reynolds,” he flung out vindictively, “is positively the most unreliable dealer I know.  He’s erratic and irresponsible.  A man may work himself to death and wait in the grave for his money.  Do you wonder poor Blakelock met his doom through the cupidity of laggard dealers?  Here am I on the verge of God knows what from overwork—­”

Whitaker spared him disillusion.  Painting with Kenny was an occupation, never work.  When it slipped tiresomely into the class of work and palled, he threw it aside for something more diverting.

“The cheese in all probability,” suggested Whitaker mildly, “wouldn’t be under the piano.  Or would it?  And don’t bother anyway.  I took the liberty of buying an emergency wedge while I was out.”

Kenny wiped his forehead in amazed relief and piously thanked God he hadn’t wasted his appetite on middle-aged cakes.

“If you hadn’t come when you did,” he said, “I’d likely had to eat ’em, thanks to Reynolds.  Now I’ll send ’em up to H. B.”  He peered disgustedly into the bag and removed an irrelevant ace of spades.  Its hibernation there seemed for an instant to annoy him as well it might.  There had been a furore in whist about it barely a week before.  Then he used it irresponsibly for an I.O.U. and impaled it upon a strange looking spike that seemed to pinion a heterogeneous admission of petty debt.

Together they made the rarebit.  Whitaker waited with foreboding for the storm to break.  But for some reason, though he was constrained and impatient and feverishly active, Kenny avoided the subject of Brian.  He lost poise and patience all at once, pushed aside his plate and challenged Whitaker with a look.