Page 196 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

come pinching my ideas sometimes; but I don’t care; the
silly—s can’t think of anything for themselves, so I’m al-
ways ahead of them. The whole thing with cartoons is being
up to date. Once a child got its head stuck in the railings of
Chelsea Bridge. Well, I heard about it, and my cartoon was
on the pavement before they’d got the child’s head out of the
railings. Prompt, I am.’
Bozo seemed an interesting man, and I was anxious to
see more of him. That evening I went down to the Embank-
ment to meet him, as he had arranged to take Paddy and
myself to a lodging-house south of the river. Bozo washed
his pictures off the pavement and counted his takings—it
was about sixteen shillings, of which he said twelve or thir-
teen would be profit. We walked down into Lambeth. Bozo
limped slowly, with a queer crablike gait, half sideways,
dragging his smashed foot behind him. He carried a stick
in each hand and slung his box of colours over his shoulder.
As we were crossing the bridge he stopped in one of the al-
coves to rest. He fell silent for a minute or two, and to my
surprise I saw that he was looking at the stars. He touched
my arm and pointed to the sky with his stick.
‘Say, will you look at Aldebaran! Look at the colour. Like
a—great blood orange!’
From the way he spoke he might have been an art critic
in a picture gallery. I was astonished. I confessed that I did
not know which Aldebaran was—indeed, I had never even
noticed that the stars were of different colours. Bozo began
to give me some elementary hints on astronomy, pointing
out-the chief constellations. He seemed concerned at my ig-

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