y power
to offer."

"A beggar must not be a chooser," said Aspel, with a light laugh.

"Well, then, what say you to keeping a shop?"

"Keeping a shop!" repeated Aspel in surprise.

"Ay, keeping a shop--this shop," returned Mr Blurt; "you once told me
you were versed in natural history; here is a field for you: a
natural-historical shop, if I may say so."

"But, my dear sir, I know nothing whatever about the business, or about
stuffing birds--and--and fishes." He looked round him in dismay. "But
you are jesting!"

Mr Blurt declared that he was very far from jesting, and then went on
to explain the circumstances of the case. It is probable that George
Aspel would have at once rejected his proposal if it had merely had
reference to his own advantage, and that he would have preferred to
apply for labour at the docks, as being more suitable work for a
sea-king's descendant; but the appeal to aid his friend in an emergency
went home to him, and he agreed to undertake the work temporarily, with
an expression of face that is common to men when forced to swallow
bitter pills.

Thus George Aspel was regularly, though suddenly, installed. When
evening approached Mrs Murridge lighted the gas, and the new shopman
set to work with energy to examine the stock and look over the books, in
the hope of thereby obtaining at least a faint perception of the nature
of the business in which he was embarked.

While thus engaged a woman entered hastily and demanded her pheasant.

"Your pheasant, my good woman?"

"Yes, the one I left here to-day wi' the broken heye. I don't want to
'ave it mended; changed my mind. Will you please give it me back, sir?"

"I must call the gentleman to whom you gave it," said Aspel, rather
sharply, for he perceived the woman had been drinking.

"Oh! you've no need, for there's the book he put my name down in, an'
there's the bird a-standin' on the shelf just under the _howl_."

Aspel turned up the book referred to, and found the page recently opened
by Mr Blurt. He had no difficulty in coming to a decision, for there
was but one entry on the page.

"This is it, I suppose," he said. "`A woman--I should say an idiot--
left a pheasant, _minus_'--"

"No more a hidyot than yourself, young man, nor a minus neither," cried
the woman, swelling with indignation, and red in the face.

Just then a lady entered the shop, and approached the counter hurriedly.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, almost in a shriek