He intended to try to paint his own name and the important word "Fishmonger," for himself. If he failed, he could only put on another coat of white, covering his failure; if he succeeded, it would be a great saving. But if he could only do it unseen, he knew that he would be far more likely to succeed, and besides no one need know of his failure. At last he concluded that as soon as the white paint was perfectly dry, he would sleep in town one night and "have a try," the moment the light would suffice; and as it was still early in August, that would give him a good time.
When the time came for his attempt, he brought his blankets from Sandsea, and at night retired to the little room behind the shop, where he slept soundly and never once thought of the ghost! Perhaps the said ghost was huffed at this disrespectful conduct, perhaps the rats had forsaken the long empty house; at all events, neither then nor ever did Roger hear or see a ghost. I cannot say he never heard or saw a rat, for in the days to come, he was obliged to keep a dog to drive them away.
He was up and at work long before the sun appeared, and when he left off, the whole board bore the inscription—
"ROGER READ, FISHMONGER"
In big capitals. What if the letters were not all the same height? What if the ER at the end had to be compressed into a very narrow space? What if the three words were so close together as to look more like one gigantic word than three ordinary ones? Roger was aware of these faults, yet he thought on the whole it looked well, and would do for the present.
"What a pity I can't open to-day!" he said to himself.
And having further considered the matter, he took his big basket and ran off to the station, to meet the train by which he usually came to Kingsmore himself. His rivals in the trade were by this time reduced to two, a man and a very old woman, to whom Roger had often been very kind. Now the question was,—Would one or both of these persons consent to sell all their fish to him, if they knew why he wanted it? And it would not be fair dealing not to tell them. He accosted them as they got out of the railway carriage, telling them what he wanted, and offering what he knew was a good price for the fish. To his great joy they both consented, the old woman saying,—
"One good turn deserves another, and your shop won't injure my little trade!"
While the man bargained for an extra shilling; but, being a lazy fellow, he was glad to be spared his usual tramp. Roger hurried home, sorted out and examined his fish, arranged it temptingly on the yellow table, tried if his arrangement with watering-pot and tub would work, and at ten o'clock proudly took down his shutters, and began business in his own shop.
"If Jack could only see it!" he muttered.