ter, intervened with a peaceable suggestion that he
should take me into his service.

"I'm on the lookout for a bright boy in my business," he observed.

But the sight of blood on his rolled-up shirt sleeves produced in me
that strange sickness I had inherited from my mother, who used to pay an
old coloured market man to come up and wring the necks of her chickens;
and when the question was put to me if I'd like to be trained up for a
butcher, I drew back and stood ready for instant flight in case they
should attempt' to decide my future by present force.

"I'd rather work for you," I said, looking straight at John Chitling,
for it occurred to me that if I were made to murder anything I'd rather
it would be oysters.

"Ha! ha! he knows by the look of you, you're needin' one to make up the
dozen," exclaimed the butcher.

"Well, I declar he does seem to have taken a regular fancy,"
acknowledged John, flattered by my decision. "I don't want any real
hands now, sonny, but if you'd like to tote the marketing around with
Solomon, I reckon I can let you have a square meal or so along with the
others."

"What'll yo' old woman say to it, John?" enquired the poultryman, with a
loud guffaw, "when you send her a new one of yo' own providin'?"

John Chitling was busily arranging a pile of turnips with what he
doubtless thought was an artistic eye for colour, and the facetiousness
of the poultryman reacted harmlessly from his thick head.

"You needn't worry about my wife, for she ain't worryin'," he rejoined,
and the shine seemed to gather like moisture on his round red face under
his shock of curling red hair. "She takes what comes an' leaves the Lord
to do the tendin'."

At this a shout went up which I did not understand, until I came to know
later that an impression existed in the neighbourhood that the Chitlings
had left entirely too much of the bringing up of their eleven children
in the hands of Providence, who in turn had left them quite as
complacently to the care of the gutter.

"I don't know but what too much trust in the Lord don't work as badly as
too little," observed the fish dealer, while John went on placidly
arranging his turnips and carrots. "What appears to me to be best
religion for a working-man is to hold a kind of middle strip between
faith and downright disbelievin'. Let yo' soul trust to the Lord's
lookin' arter you, but never let yo' hands get so much as an inklin'
that you're a-trustin'. Yes, the