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"I can quite understand that," Cumshaw said, between puffs at his pipe. It was one of those neat little affairs with a round bowl, a spick-and-span pipe that had burnt an even color and that shone as brightly as the day he bought it.
He stepped on deck, and passing to the bow of his embarkation, looked for the first time up the river. He started. Only a few hundred yards above another houseboat lay moored among the willows. It was very spick-and-span, an elegant canoe hung at the stern, the windows were concealed by snowy curtains, a flag floated from a staff.
But go on I'm listening," he added, as an orderly came up, saluted, and handed him a paper. "Well," I said, "let's cross to the other side. I don't want the sentry to overhear." "As you like but why such mystery?" he asked as we walked together to the other side of the spick-and-span quarter-deck of the gigantic battleship. "You'll understand when I tell you the story."
The clumsy glass, too, did not suit her taste, and, while looking it over and selecting what was necessary, she could not help thinking of her recently-wedded friends, who, with sparkling eyes, had showed her their spick-and-span new table-furniture as proudly and happily, as if each piece had been their own work.
Many vehicles came dashing down Tinplate Street: carriages, public and private, of every variety, from the rattletrap cab hired off the stand, or the decent coach from the livery stable, to the smart spick-and-span brougham, with its well-appointed horses and servants in neat livery.
She invited me to follow her; and I descended to the main cabin, a spick-and-span apartment, where we surprised two passably good-looking damsels at their housework, the one polishing a mahogany swing-table, the other a brass door-handle.
So he swallowed his pride, and grudgingly allowed Dick to take hold on one side while he dragged at the other, and in this fashion the machine was speedily placed once more on dry land. Of course it was pretty well soiled, and did not look very much like the spick-and-span new wheel that a few days back had been the envy of every boy in Riverview.
Thence we went to the island of Sandals, whose inhabitants live on nothing but ling-broth. However, we were very kindly received and entertained by Benius the Third, king of the island, who, after he had made us drink, took us with him to show us a spick-and-span new monastery which he had contrived for the Semiquaver Friars; so he called the religious men whom he had there.
The eternally spick-and-span uniforms, and the so-to-speak buttoned-up faces of the government officials, soldiers, and statesmen, did not offer a wide field for his brush: it forgot how to render superb draperies and powerful emotion and passion. Of grouping, dramatic effect and its lofty connections, there was nothing.
If you are a hotel proprietor, or a school proprietor, or a day labourer, such weaknesses become a strength, of course, but not otherwise. For a literary person if perchance you are a literary person it is altogether too dreadful. You are always getting swept and garnished, straightened up and sent out to be shaved. And home even your study becomes a glittering, spick-and-span mechanism.
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