to do something for a living to help out his good old
mother's feeble efforts, and to keep a roof over their two heads. He
set his wits to work to puzzle out a way. Without a right arm he was
of little or no use in the fishing-boats, which constituted the sole
trade of Northbourne. So fishing was out of the question.

Now people don't go the length of Franz Josef Land without picking up a
few odds and ends of information. Therefore it was not long before
Jerry did hit upon a trade, and it was one thoroughly to his mind.
From his boyhood he had been a passionate lover of the open, and Mother
Nature had shared her secrets with him in no niggard fashion.

He was tolerably well acquainted with the ways and the haunts of his
winged neighbours, and could, perhaps, have 'given points' to many a
scientifically educated naturalist. And it came to pass that he
bethought himself of certain valuable hints he had got anent the
artificial training of the inhabitants of the air from an astute old
Frenchman, one of those curiosities to be met with but rarely, whose
minds are human museums--treasure-houses in which are stored scraps of
varied knowledge.

'You may keep school, my lad,' dryly commented his mother when she had
carefully digested Jerry's plan, 'but you won't find it easy to keep
scholars.'

'Well, you'll see!' was the quietly spoken prediction; for Jerry Blunt
had fully determined to be a bird-trainer, and the pupils he was in
search of were young bullfinches.

Of course when this remarkable intention became known among the
fisher-folk it was derisively condemned by the elders. On the other
hand, Jerry's younger neighbours, particularly Ned Dempster, were
immediately fired with an eager desire to assist him in the novel
enterprise. Ned's enthusiasm naturally infected both the Carnegy boys;
they also would fain become bird-trainers on the spot, lacking all
knowledge of the matter though they, naturally, did. With the frenzy
that possesses boys in regard to every absolutely new amusement, the
two Carnegys slept, ate, drank, and, as it were, breathed to the tune
of one thought--the determination that they also would be bird-teachers.

This all-powerful, novel freak was at the bottom of the furious meeting
at the Bunk. Philip Price, the tutor, sympathising fully with the
ardent pursuits of boyhood, had been over-indulgent in the matter of
granting whole Wednesdays, instead of half-holidays. Any excuse
sufficed