“But,” said Ambrose with an uneasy wriggle, “being obedient doesn’t show. I want something to show father.”
Dr Budge looked absently out of the window a moment, and Ambrose began to be afraid that he had forgotten all about the subject. But he suddenly looked round and said:
“Better is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”
Seeing Ambrose’s puzzled stare he continued:
“You see we must remember that the best and most useful things do not always make the most noise in the world. The man who rules his spirit to obedience does not do anything that ‘shows’ at all. Very often no one knows what he has done. The man who takes the city does it with noise and tumult, and gets fame and praise. Yet of those two the first perhaps does the harder thing, and may be more useful to his fellow-creatures. And it is just the little common things which come every day and don’t show that we must be careful about, because they keep us ready to obey in a great thing if we are called to do it. So if I were you, Ambrose,” said the doctor, smiling very kindly as he ended this speech, “I would be careful about the things that don’t show. Your father will know then that he can trust you, though you may think they are too little and common to make any difference.”
Ambrose had never heard Dr Budge say so much before on any subject, and indeed he was generally rather sparing of his words. It was all the more flattering, therefore, that he should take all this trouble, and he had looked so very kind while he was talking that Ambrose said to himself, “I’m very glad we got his jackdaw back.”
He went home full of the best resolutions possible, which he carried out so well for the next few days that Nancy asked in surprise: “Why are you so good?” feeling sure that something must have happened.
Dr Budge said nothing more about the museum or anything approaching it for some days, and Ambrose thought he had forgotten all about it. He was quite startled, therefore, when his master, suddenly leaning forward over his desk, said one morning:
“I suppose you and David still want to fill the museum?”
“Oh, yes,” he replied, “of course we do!”