The Blue Moon | Page 8

he guessed that all the world outside was in bed, Tiki-pu would
mount one of his candles on a wooden stand and paint by the light of it,
blinding himself over his task, till the dawn came and gave him a better
and cheaper light to work by.
Tiki-pu quite hugged himself over the results; he believed he was doing
very well. "If only Wio-wani were here to teach me," thought he, "I
would be in the way of becoming a great painter!"
The resolution came to him one night that Wio-wani should teach him.
So he took a large piece of rice-paper and strained it, and sitting down
opposite "Wio-wani's back-door," began painting. He had never set
himself so big a task as this; by the dim stumbling light of his candle he

strained his eyes nearly blind over the difficulties of it; and at last was
almost driven to despair. How the trees stood row behind row, with air
and sunlight between, and how the path went in and out, winding its
way up to the little door in the palace-wall were mysteries he could not
fathom. He peered and peered and dropped tears into his paint-pots; but
the secret of the mystery of such painting was far beyond him.
The door in the palace-wall opened; out came a little old man and
began walking down the pathway towards him.
The soul of Tiki-pu gave a sharp leap in his grubby little body. "That
must be Wio-wani himself and no other!" cried his soul.
Tiki-pu pulled off his cap and threw himself down on the floor with
reverent grovellings. When he dared to look up again Wio-wani stood
over him big and fine; just within the edge of his canvas he stood and
reached out a hand.
"Come along with me, Tiki-pu!" said the great one. "If you want to
know how to paint I will teach you."
"Oh, Wio-wani, were you there all the while?" cried Tiki-pu
ecstatically, leaping up and clutching with his smeary little puds the
hand which the old man extended to him.
"I was there," said Wio-wani, "looking at you out of my little window.
Come along in!"
Tiki-pu took a heave and swung himself into the picture, and fairy
capered when he found his feet among the flowers of Wio-wani's
beautiful garden. Wio-wani had turned, and was ambling gently back to
the door of his palace, beckoning to the small one to follow him; and
there stood Tiki-pu, opening his mouth like a fish to all the wonders
that surrounded him. "Celestiality, may I speak?" he said suddenly.
"Speak," replied Wio-wani; "what is it?"
"The Emperor, was he not the very flower of fools not to follow when
you told him?"
"I cannot say," answered Wio-wani, "but he certainly was no artist."
Then he opened the door, that door which he had so beautifully painted,
and led Tiki-pu in. And outside the little candle-end sat and guttered by
itself, till the wick fell overboard, and the flame kicked itself out,
leaving the studio in darkness and solitude to wait for the growings of
another dawn.
It was full day before Tiki-pu re- appeared; he came running down the

green path in great haste, jumped out of the frame on to the studio floor,
and began tidying up his own messes of the night and the apprentices'
of the previous day. Only just in time did he have things ready by the
hour when his master and the others returned to their work.
All that day they kept scratching their left ears, and could not think why;
but Tiki-pu knew, for he was saying over to himself all the things that
Wio-wani, the great painter, had been saying about them and their
precious productions. And as he ground their colours for them and
washed their brushes, and filled his famished little body with the
breadcrumbs they threw away, little they guessed from what an
immeasurable distance he looked down upon them all, and had
Wio-wani's word for it tickling his right ear all the day long.
Now before long Tiki-pu's master noticed a change in him; and though
he bullied him, and thrashed him, and did all that a careful master
should do, he could not get the change out of him. So in a short while
he grew suspicious. "What is the boy up to?" he wondered. "I have my
eye on him all day: it must be at night that he gets into mischief."
It did not take Tiki-pu's master a night's watching to find that
something surreptitious was certainly going on. When it was dark he
took up his post outside the studio, to see whether by any chance
Tiki-pu had some way of getting out; and before long he saw a