“But you have undertaken everything!”
“I am quite ready, sir; but in that case these must wait. My faculty is best laid out on mending, and I must do some good work in that first. I don't know that I'm quite up to my father in binding. I mentioned him because if he were to help me with those that must be bound, I should have the more time for what often takes longer. You may trust my father, sir; he does not want to make a fortune.”
“I will try him then,” answered the cautious heir. “At least I will send him the books, and learn what he would charge.”
He had more of the ordinary tradesman in him than Richard and his uncle put together.
“I will put the prices on them, and engage that my father will charge no more,” said Richard.
Lestrange was content on hearing them, and Richard set to work with the other volumes.
The bookbinder, always busy, soon began to be respected in the house, and before long had gained several indulgences—among the rest, to have a table for himself in the library, at which, when work-hours were over, he might read or write when he pleased. As his labours went on, the bookscape began to revive, and continued slowly putting on an autumnal radiance of light and colour. Dingy and broken backs gradually disappeared. Pamphlets and magazines, such as, from knowledge or inquiry, Richard thought worth the expense, were sent off to his father to be bound. But I must continue my narrative from a point long before his work began to make much of a show.
A few valuable books, much injured by time and rough usage,—among the rest a quarto of The Merry Wives—he had pulled apart, and was treating with certain solutions, in preparation for binding them, when Lestrange came in one morning, accompanied by the curate of the parish. His eyes fell on a loose title-page which he happened to know.
“What on earth are you doing?” he cried. “You will destroy that book! By Jove!—You little know what you're about!”
“I do know what I am about, sir. I shall do the book nothing but good,” answered Richard. “It could not have lasted many years without what I am doing.”