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