One morning, toward the end of the week, I, strolling along the dunes, came upon Frisby. He was bill-posting. I caught him red-handed.
"This," said I, "must stop. Do you understand, Mr. Frisby?"
He stepped back from his work, laying his head on one side, considering first me, then the bill that he had pasted on one of our big boilers.
"Don't like the colour?" he asked. "It goes well on them boilers."
"Colour! No, I don't like the colour either. Can't you understand that there are some people in the world who object to seeing patent-medicine advertisements scattered over a landscape?"
"Will you kindly remove that advertisement?" I persisted.
I was too disgusted to speak, but my disgust turned to anger when I perceived that, as far as the eye could reach, our boilers, lying from three to four hundred feet apart, were ablaze with yellow and red posters, extolling the "Eureka Liver Pill Company."
"It don't cost 'em nothin'," said Frisby cheerfully; "I done it fur the fun of it. Purty, ain't it?"
"They are Professor Holroyd's boilers," I said, subduing a desire to beat Frisby with my telescope. "Wait until Miss Holroyd sees this work."
"Don't she like yeller and red?" he demanded anxiously.
Frisby gaped at his handiwork and then at his yellow dog. After a moment he mechanically spat on a clamshell and requested Davy to "sic" it.
"Can't you comprehend that you have ruined our pleasure in the landscape?" I asked more mildly.
"I've got some green bills," said Frisby; "I kin stick 'em over the yeller ones----"
"Confound it!" said I, "it isn't the colour!"
"Then," observed Frisby, "you don't like them pills. I've got some bills of the 'Cropper Bicycle,' and a few of 'Bagley, the Gents' Tailor----'"
"Frisby," said I, "use them all--paste the whole collection over your dog and yourself--then walk off the cliff."
He sullenly unfolded a green poster, swabbed the boiler with paste, laid the upper section of the bill upon it, and plastered the whole bill down with a thwack of his brush. As I walked away I heard him muttering.
Next day Daisy was so horrified that I promised to give Frisby an ultimatum. I found him with Freda, gazing sentimentally at his work, and I sent him back to the shop in a hurry, telling Freda at the same time that she could spend her leisure in providing Mr. Frisby with sand, soap, and a scrubbing brush. Then I walked on to my post of observation.