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Updated: June 8, 2025
He knew, too, the story which was told of it, making it as holy to his eyes as the tombs of his own ancestors. The apprentices joked over it, calling it "Wio-wani's back-door," "Wio-wani's night-cap," and many other nicknames; but Tiki-pu was quite sure, since the picture was so beautiful, that the story must be true.
There inside was a candle burning on a stand, and Tiki-pu squatting with paint-pots and brush in front of Wio-Wani's last masterpiece. "What fine piece of burglary is this?" thought he; "what serpent have I been harbouring in my bosom? Is this beast of a grub of a boy thinking to make himself a painter and cut me out of my reputation and prosperity?"
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.
But Nillywill and Hands-pansy, living together in the blue moon, look back upon the world, if now and then they choose to remember, without any longing for it or sorrow. Tiki-pu was a small grub of a thing; but he had a true love of Art deep down in his soul. There it hung mewing and complaining, struggling to work its way out through the raw exterior that bound it.
"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.
Now and then he would throw a glance across to the bricked-up doorway of Wio-wani's palace, and laugh to himself, thinking how well he had served out Tiki-pu for his treachery and presumption.
"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!"
For even at that distance he could perceive plainly that the work of this boy went head and shoulders beyond his, or that of any painter then living. Presently Wio-wani opened his door and came down the path, as was his habit now each night, to call Tiki-pu to his lesson.
This studio Tiki-pu swept; for those who worked in it he ground colours, washed brushes, and ran errands, bringing them their dog chops and bird's-nest soup from the nearest eating-house whenever they were too busy to go out to it themselves. He himself had to feed mainly on the breadcrumbs which the students screwed into pellets for their drawings and then threw about upon the floor.
One day it was five years after the disappearance of Tiki-pu he was giving his apprentices a lecture on the glories and the beauties and the wonders of Wio-wani's painting how nothing for colour could excel, or for mystery could equal it. To add point to his eloquence, he stood waving his hands before Wio-wani's last masterpiece, and all his students and apprentices sat round him and looked.
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