m the sailors, and sell them to furriers and feather
preparers, who supply ladies' hat and bonnet makers. In future, I
propose that you shall mount them and sell them direct. We shall get far
higher prices than we do now. I seem to be putting most of the work on
your shoulders, but do not want you to help me in the shop. I will look
after the birds and buy and sell as I used to do; you will have the back
room private to yourself for stuffing and mounting."

Frank was delighted at this allotment of labor, and was soon at work
rummaging the drawers and picking out specimens for mounting, and made
a selection sufficient to keep him employed for weeks. That evening he
sallied out and expended his two pounds in underlinen, of which he was
sorely in need. As he required them his employer ordered showcases for
the window, of various sizes, getting the backgrounds painted and fitted
up as Frank suggested.

Frank did not get on so fast with his work as he had hoped, for the fame
of the sailor's cat and macaw spread rapidly in the neighborhood, and
there was a perfect rush of sailors and their wives anxious to have
birds and skins, which had been brought from abroad, mounted. The sailor
himself looked in one day.

"If you like another two pounds for that 'ere cat, governor, I'm game
to pay you. It's the best thing that ever happened to me. Every one's
wanting to see 'em, and there's the old woman dressed up in her Sunday
clothes a-sitting in the parlor as proud as a peacock a showing of 'em
off. The house ain't been so quiet since I married. Them animals would
be cheap to me at a ten pound note. They'll get you no end of orders, I
can tell you."

The orders, indeed, came in much faster than Frank could fulfill them,
although he worked twelve hours a day; laying aside all other work,
however, for three hours in order to devote himself to the shop cases,
which were to be chef d'oeuvres.

CHAPTER VII: AN OLD FRIEND

For three months Frank passed a quiet and not unpleasant life with the
old naturalist in Ratcliff Highway. The latter took a great liking to
him, and treated him like a son rather than an assistant. The two took
their meals together now, and Frank's salary had been raised from twelve
to eighteen shillings a week. So attractive had the cases in the windows
proved that quite a little crowd was generally collected round them, and
the business had greatly augmented. The old naturalist was less pleased
at this ch