“There's little hope or fear of that, sir! But I can't bear not to know what's in my very hands. I can't be content with the outsides of the books I bind. It seems a shame to come so near light and never see it shine. If I were a tailor, I should learn anatomy. I know one tailor who is as familiar with the human form as any sculptor in London—more, perhaps!”
Lestrange began to feel uncomfortable. If he let this prodigy go on talking and asking questions, he would find out how little he knew about anything! But Richard was no prodigy. He was only a youth capable of interest in everything, with the stimulus of not finding the fountains of knowledge at his very door, and the aid of having to work all day at some pleasant task, nearly associated with higher things that he loved better. He did know a good deal for his age, but not so very much for his opportunity, his advantages being great. Most men who learn would learn more, I suspect, if they had work to do, and difficulty in the way of learning. Those counted high among Richard's advantages. He was, besides, considerably attracted by the mechanics of literature—a department little cultivated by those who have most need of what grows in it.
Further talk followed. Lestrange grew interested in the phenomenon of a blacksmith that bound books and read them. He began to dream of patronage and responsive devotion. What a thing it would be for him, in after years, with the cares of property and parliament combining to curtail his leisure, to have such a man at his beck, able to gather the information he desired, and to reduce, tabulate, and embody it so as to render his chief the best-informed man in the House! while at other times he would manage for him his troublesome tenants, and upon occasion shoe his wife's favourite horse! He could also depend upon him to provide, from the rich stores of his memory, suitable quotations when he wished to make a speech! Lestrange had never thought whether the wish to appear might not indicate the duty to be; had never seen that, until he was, to desire to appear was to cherish the soul of a sneak. He had no notion of anything but the look; no notion that, having made a good speech, he would deserve an atom the less praise for it that he could not have made it without his secretary. Did any one think the less of clearing a five-barred gate, he would have answered, that it could not be done without a horse? Where was the difference? A man you paid to be your secretary, still more a man whose education to be your secretary you had paid for—was he not yours in a way at least analogous to that in which a horse was yours? He could break away from you more easily, no doubt, but a man knew better than a horse on which side his bread was buttered!
“I think, squire, I'll go and have a pipe with the coachman!” said the blacksmith at length.
“As you please, Armour,” answered Lestrange. “I will take care of your—nephew, is he?”
“My grandson, sir—from London.”
“All right! There's good stuff in the breed, Armour!—I will bring him to you.”
Richard went on taking down book after book, and showing his host how much they required attention.
“And you could set all right for—?—for how much?” asked Lestrange.
“That no one could say. It would, however, cost little more than time and skill. The material would not come to much. Only, where the paper itself is in decay, I do not know about that. I have learned nothing in that department yet.”