Roaring lion head line design on tracing paper

The lion went up over the Fleece this morning, or the head of it did, and the torn scrap of tracing paper is in my top pocket to prove I didn't lose the lines. You'd have laughed. Mr Hebden stood in the road with his cap pushed back and said the beast looked like it meant to eat the dray. I told him that was the idea. He wanted it fierce for the new licensee, who has never once been fierce about anything.

I spent three nights at the bench with a ruler and dividers, building that mane one curve at a time. Every arc sits inside the one before it, like rings when you drop a stone in the mill pond. Hebden thought I'd gone soft in the head over the two long lines running above and below the chin. I said they were there to keep the thing level, the way a plumb bob keeps a wall honest. He didn't ask again.

I was up the ladder at six, the sky still grey over the chimneys. The paper had gone limp at one corner from the dew on the cart, and I tore more off trying to lift it, which is why the sheet looks like a map of nowhere. Then the sun cleared the Co-op roof and the gold caught the teeth just so, and the lion seemed to open its jaws at the whole street at once.

Hebden came out with two mugs of tea and stood looking up for a long while. Then he said, "Put a tooth in for every year the place sat empty." I told him the lion had enough teeth already. I'll write again when the varnish is dry.

Yours, Ted