'Ah! Jonah an' his whale. I've never been as far as Bury. You've
worked about a lot,' said Mr Springett, with his eyes on the
carter below.

'No. Not the whale. This was a picture of Jonah and the
pompion that withered. But all that Benedetto had shown was a
peevish grey-beard huggled up in angle-edged drapery beneath a
pompion on a wooden trellis. This last, being a dead thing, he'd
drawn it as 'twere to the life. But fierce old Jonah, bared in the
sun, angry even to death that his cold prophecy was disproven -
Jonah, ashamed, and already hearing the children of Nineveh
running to mock him - ah, that was what Benedetto had not
drawn!'

'He better ha' stuck to his whale, then,' said Mr Springett.

'He'd ha' done no better with that. He draws the damp cloth off
the picture, an' shows it to me. I was a craftsman too, d'ye see?'

'"Tis good," I said, "but it goes no deeper than the plaster."

'"What?" he said in a whisper.

'"Be thy own judge, Benedetto," I answered. "Does it go
deeper than the plaster?"

'He reeled against a piece of dry wall. "No," he says, "and I
know it. I could not hate thee more than I have done these five
years, but if I live, I will try, Hal. I will try." Then he goes away. I