replies to Hope to be brushing away a fly mechanically and languidly. The
poor fly felt sick at heart, and crept away disconsolate. But at the very
door he turned, and for his child's sake made another attempt.

"Have you an opening for a clerk? I can write business letters in French,
German, and Dutch; and keep books by double entry."

"No vacancy for a clerk," was the weary reply.

"Well, then, a foreman in the yard. I have studied the economy of
industry, and will undertake to get you the greatest amount of labor out
of the smallest number of men."

"I have a foreman already," said Bartley, turning his back on him
peevishly, for the first time, and pacing the room, absorbed in his own
disappointment.

Hope was in despair, and put on his hat to go. But he turned at the
window and said: "You have vans and carts. I understand horses
thoroughly. I am a veterinary surgeon, and I can drive four-in-hand. I
offer myself as carman, or even hostler."

"I do not want a hostler, and I have a carman."

Bartley, when he had said this, sat down like a man who had finally
disposed of the application.

Hope went to the very door, and leaned against it. His jaw dropped. He
looked ten years older. Then, with a piteous attempt at cheerfulness, he
came nearer, and said: "A messenger, then. I'm young and very active,
and never waste my employer's time."

Even this humble proposal was declined, though Hope's cheeks burned
with shame as he made it. He groaned aloud, and his head dropped on
his breast.

His eye fell on the will lying on the ground; he went and picked it up,
and handed it respectfully to Bartley.

Bartley stared, took it, and bowed his head an inch or two in
acknowledgment of the civility. This gave the poor daunted father courage
again. Now that Bartley's face was turned to him by this movement, he
took advantage of it, and said, persuasively:

"Give me some kind of employment, sir. You will never repent it." Then he
began to warm with conscious power. "I've intelligence, practicability,
knowledge; and in this age of science knowledge is wealth. Example: I saw
a swell march out of this place that owns all the parish I was born in. I
knew him in a moment--Colonel Clifford. Well, that old soldier draws his
rents when he can get them, and never looks deeper than the roots of the
grass his cattle crop. But _I_ tell _you_ he never takes a walk about his
grounds but he marches upon millions--coal! sir, coal! and near