PHILIP WOOD AND SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.
'Be off, I tell you! We want no loiterers here!' said a workman, roughly pushing away a country lad who was gazing with deep interest at the busy crowd of people engaged in the rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral.
This famous church, destroyed by the Great Fire in 1666, was now—some three years later—being restored under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren.
'I am not loitering, sir,' answered the lad humbly. 'I have come up from Suffolk to seek work. I can carve, and I can——'
'Be off, I tell you!' harshly interrupted the foreman; 'we want no hedge-carpenters here! Here comes the master. Be off, or he will make short work of you!'
The master, no less a person than the great Sir Christopher himself, now came up, and catching sight of the lad, said sternly:
'Who is that youth? Has he business here? If not, bid him begone, for lookers-on hinder the work.'