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Barnabas poured out the tea, which was drunk out of cream-coloured cups with festoons of flowers on them. There were not enough chairs, but a couple of packing-cases had been pressed into service, and they sat round an oak table—gate-legged. Barnabas had picked it up for a mere song at a filthy little shop in a back street. He was very proud of the bargain.

The six men were curiously dissimilar in appearance and in character. One took in the outlines of that, as one took in their appearance at the first glance.

Next to Barnabas was Dan Oldfield, huge, red-haired, and untidy-looking. He was one of a large family, and had begun his artistic career at a suburban art school, where he had risen to the post of pupil teacher, and later to that of assistant master. At twenty-two he had been left three hundred a year by an uncle, and had come to London to study at the Slade Schools. He was now thirty, and had never lost the idea of minute finish inculcated in him at the art school. It found expression in his tiny pictures of almost miniature-like work, pictures which the palm of one of his huge hands would have covered.