d up the wrong wye, as
you might sye,--but a real trouble like what you and me 'ave 'ad
plenty of--never! It's my opinion that trouble is to char-_ac_-ter
what a peg'll be to a creepin' vine--something to which the vine'll
'ook on and pull itself up by. Where there's nothink to ketch on to
the vine'll grow; but it'll grow in a 'eap of flop." There was a
tremor in his tone as he summed up. "That's somethink like my poor
boy."

Letty found this interesting. That in these exalted circles there
could be a need of refining chastisement came to her as a surprise.

"The wife as I've always 'oped for 'im," Steptoe went on, "is one
that'd know what trouble was, and 'ow to fyce it. 'E'd myke a grand
'usband to a woman who was--strong. But she'd 'ave to be the wall
what the creepin' vine could cover all over and--and beautify."

"That wouldn't be me."

"If I was madam I wouldn't be so sure of that. It don't do to
undervalyer your own powers. If I'd 'a done that I wouldn't 'a been
where I am to-dye. Many's the time, when I was no more than a poor
little foundlin' boy in a 'ome I've said to myself, I'm fit for
somethink big. Somethink big I always meant to be. When it didn't seem
possible for me to aim so 'igh I'd myde up my mind to be a valet and a
butler. It comes--your hambition does. What you've first got to do is
to form it; and then you've got to stick to it through thick and
thin."

To say what she said next Letty had to break down barrier beyond
barrier of inhibition and timidity. "And if I was to--to form the--the
ambition--to be--to be the kind of wall you was talkin' about just
now----"

"That wouldn't be hambition; it'd be--consecrytion."

He allowed her time to get the meaning of this before going on.

"But madam mustn't expect not to find it 'ard. Consecrytion is always
'ard, by what I can myke out. When Mr. Rash was a little 'un 'e used
to get Miss Pye, 'is governess, to read to 'im a fairy tyle about a
little mermaid what fell in love with a prince on land. Bein' in love
with 'im she wanted to be with 'im, natural like; but there she was in
one element, as you might sye, and 'im in another."

"That'd be like me."

"Which is why I'm tellin' madam of the story. Well, off the little
mermaid goes to the sea-witch to find out 'ow she could get rid of 'er
fish's tyle and 'ave two feet for to walk about in the prince's
palace. Well, the sea-witch she up and tells 'er what she'd 'ave to
do. Only, says she, if y