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bookie is.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘The bookie with the bevy of damsels.’
    ‘Oh, him.’
    ‘He’s called Munnings. Taken that place near the mill.’
    ‘Is he a painter?’
    ‘Of sorts. Apparently. If you can believe it.’
    ‘I can, yes.’
    ‘Invited us to a party.’
    ‘Has he, how nice!’
    ‘You go.’
    ‘What about you?’
    ‘I’ve got toothache.’
    Poor Harold. He’d always had terrible trouble with his teeth.

Suddenly There Came a Knocking
    ‘There are so many artist chappies on my land now, Gilbert,’ Colonel Paynter said (more than once) as they walked side by
     side round the estate, ‘you’ll soon be taking a roll call at sundown.’ This was one of the Colonel’s better little jokes.
     Since Gilbert had arrived down in Lamorna, as the Colonel’s land agent, some new artist or other, or artist’s model, had appeared
     almost every month in one cottage or studio or outhouse. Newlyn, of course, had been packed tight with them for many years,
     but now it was Lamorna’s turn (as later it was to be St Ives’). The trouble was, with these artist chappies, someone was always
     joining the ranks unannounced or jumping ship, so Gilbert decided there would be very little point in trying to keep track
     of them all.
    Tramps, gypsies, coastal walkers and artists, it was not (frankly) always easy to discriminate one from the other. One month
     they were as penniless as the mice in the church or borrowing off each other; then the news went round that someone had sold
     a couple of pictures in Bond Street or had an exhibition lining up in Penzance and they all somehow made ends meet – or, more
     likely, they went mad on theproceeds. So life was never dull. That was what felt so very good about being down here in that far-flung corner of England,
     a place people came to punt away their previous existence, rather appropriately (Gilbert thought), as the tip of Cornwall
     was like the boot at the end of a long leg.
    For many years Newlyn had been the focal point. Stanhope Forbes (‘the Professor’) and his wife Elizabeth had attracted a large
     number of young art students from London, indeed from all parts of England. Then Samuel John Birch (soon to be called ‘Lamorna’
     Birch) settled four miles away from Newlyn in Lamorna, in his house just up from the cove – and what a view he had! Other
     artists followed. One, two, three … became a trickle, then a small stream, and now (as the Colonel implied) the floodgates
     were open.
    ‘Lots of painters,’ the Colonel said, ‘but not a decent carpenter in sight.’
    That was another of his little jokes.
    Apart from the locals, Gilbert Evans was just about the only one who wasn’t an artist. Down at The Wink playing skittles the
     other night he heard a man grumbling away that Lamorna ‘weren’t Cornwall any more’. The trouble with comments of that nature,
     quite apart from the fact that they made Gilbert feel unwelcome, was that he was not entirely sure what was meant by ‘Cornwall’.
     By ‘Cornwall’ did those in The Wink mean windswept, deprived inland farms and poor fishermen risking their lives? Did they
     mean people who spoke with impossible accents? Maybe they did. But was there not room enough in that strange vast county for
     all of them, artists and writers and fishermen, even for the occasional army officer turned land agent?
    Laura Knight put it rather well over supper. Gilbert, a regular guest up in their long low cottage, was lighting their paraffin
     lamp and Laura, as usual, was talking.
    ‘Cornwall isn’t like anywhere else, you see, so it’s no use trying to compare it to your previous experiences. Take Nottingham,
     take Yorkshire, take Holland, take Paris, they’re all so different. Isn’t that right, Harold? We’ve always found that, haven’t
     we? … Harold?’
    Harold went on reading, his glasses on the end of his nose.
    ‘Harold, isn’t it?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘What I just