"You talk as though thirty pounds was to be had for the
asking. None the less," he says, "your draft's a fine piece of work."
'I'd been looking at it ever since I came in, and 'twas viler even
than I judged it at first. My eye and hand had been purified the
past months, d'ye see, by my iron work.
'"I could do it better now," I said. The more I studied my
squabby Neptunes the less I liked 'em; and Arion was a pure
flaming shame atop of the unbalanced dolphins.
'"I doubt it will be fresh expense to draft it again," he says.
'"Bob never paid me for the first draft. I lay he'll never pay me
for the second. 'Twill cost the King nothing if I re-draw it," I says.
'"There's a woman wishes it to be done quickly," he says.
"We'll stick to your first drawing, Master Dawe. But thirty
pounds is thirty pounds. You must make it less.'
'And all the while the faults in my draft fair leaped out and hit
me between the eyes. At any cost, I thinks to myself, I must get it
back and re-draft it. He grunts at me impatiently, and a splendid
thought comes to me, which shall save me. By the same token,
It was quite honest.'
'They ain't always,' says Mr Springett.
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