“I think I understand what is good for that boy,” said my aunt shortly.
“Of course you do,” said the doctor, “and you think it will do him good to help me a bit, Sophy. Come along, Nat, my boy, we are to have the back-room for the chests, so we must make ready, for they will be here to-morrow.”
“Oh, Doctor Burnett,” I cried as soon as we were alone.
“Suppose you call me Uncle Richard for the future, my boy,” he said. “By and by, when we get to know each other better, it will be Uncle Dick. Why not at once, eh?”
“I—I shouldn’t like to call you that, sir,” I said.
“Why not?”
“I—I hardly know, sir, only that you seem so clever and to know so much.”
“Then it shall be Uncle Dick at once,” he said, laughing merrily; “for every day that you are with me, Nat, you will be finding out more and more that I am not so clever as you think.”
So from that day it was always Uncle Dick, and as soon as the great chests arrived we set to work.
I shall never forget those great rough boxes made of foreign wood, nor the intense interest with which I watched them as they were carried in upon the backs of the stout railway vanmen and set carefully in the large back-room.