“Lad, you are a wonder! Tell me now who and what are you? I saw when you first addressed me that you were not what you seemed to be, a working lad.”
“I have been well educated,” Frank said, “and was taught to preserve and stuff by my father, who was a great naturalist. My parents died suddenly, and I was left on my own resources, which,” he said, smiling faintly, “have hitherto proved of very small avail. I am glad you are pleased. If you will take me into your service I will work hard and make myself useful in every way. If you require references I can refer you to the doctor who attended us in the country; but I have not a single friend in London except a railway porter, who has most kindly and generously taken me in and sheltered me for the last two months.”
“I need no references,” the old man said; “your work speaks for itself as to your skill, and your face for your character. But I can offer you nothing fit for you. With such a genius as you have for setting up animals, you ought to be able to earn a good income. Not one man in a thousand can make a dead animal look like a live one. You have the knack or the art.”
“I shall be very content with anything you can give me,” Frank said; “for the present I only ask to earn my living. If later on I can, as you say, do more, all the better.”
The old man stood for some time thinking, and presently said, “I do but little except in live stock. When I had my daughter with me I did a good deal of stuffing, for there is a considerable trade hereabout. The sailors bring home skins of foreign birds, and want them stuffed and put in cases, as presents for their wives and sweethearts. You work fast as well as skillfully. I have known men who would take a fortnight to do such a group as that, and then it would be a failure. It will be quite a new branch for my trade. I do not know how it will act yet, but to begin with I will give you twelve shillings a week, and a room upstairs. If it succeeds we will make other arrangements. I am an old man, and a very lonely one. I shall be glad to have such a companion.”
Frank joyfully embraced the offer, and ran all the way home to tell his friend, the porter, of the engagement.
“I am very glad,” the man said; “heartily glad. I shall miss you sorely. I do not know what I should have done without you when I first lost poor Jane and the kids. But now I can go back to my old ways again.”
“Perhaps,” Frank suggested, “you might arrange to have a room also in the house. It would not be a very long walk, not above twenty or five and twenty minutes, and I should be so glad to have you with me.”
The man sat silent for a time. “No,” he said at last, “I thank you all the same. I should like it too, but I don't think it would be best in the end. Here all my mates live near, and I shall get on in time. The Christmas holiday season will soon be coming on and we shall be up working late. If you were always going to stop at the place you are going to, it would be different; but you will rise, never fear. I shall be seeing you in gentleman's clothes again some of these days. I've heard you say you were longing to get your books and to be studying again, and you'll soon fall into your own ways; but if you will let me, I'll come over sometimes and have a cup of tea and a chat with you. Now, look here, I'm going out with you now, and I'm going to buy you a suit of clothes, something like what you had on when I first saw you. They won't be altogether unsuitable in a shop. This is a loan, mind, and you may pay me off as you get flush.”
Frank saw he should hurt the good fellow's feelings by refusing, and accordingly went out with him, and next morning presented himself at the shop in a quiet suit of dark gray tweed, and with his other clothes in a bundle.