ield for Burr major and another
of the bigger lads, Mercer and I waited our time, one day when I had
been there about a fortnight, and then slipped off to the stable-yard,
and then up into one of the lofts, which the boys were allowed to use as
a kind of workshop.

"What do you want to come here for?" I said, as we ascended the rough
ladder, and stood in the dimly lighted place.

"I'll show you directly," he said. "Don't you know what I've got up
here?"

"No."

"My museum."

I looked around, but nothing was visible but some willow chips, and a
half-formed cricket bat which Dicksee was making, by the help of a
spokeshave he had borrowed at the wheelwright's, and which promised to
be as clumsy a stump defender as ever was held in two hands.

"Well," I said, "where is it?"

"Here," said Mercer triumphantly, as he led the way to where an old
corn-bin stood beneath one of the windows, the lid securely held down by
a padlock whose key my companion brought out of his pocket.

"Never mind the old Latin and Euclid. I'll let you come and help me
here sometimes, and if old Burr major or Dicksee interferes, you'll have
to help me, for I wouldn't have my things spoiled for ever so much."

"Oh, I'll help you," I said, and I waited with some curiosity while he
opened the lock, and, after hanging it on a nail, slowly raised the lid,
and I looked in to see a strange assortment of odds and ends. What
seemed to be dead birds were mixed up with tow, feathers, wire, a file,
a pair of cutting pincers, and a flat pomatum pot, on which was printed
the word "poison."

"What's that for?" I said wonderingly.

"Oh, that's soap," he said.

"No, no, that--the poison."

"Soap, I tell you. Take off the lid."

I hesitated for a moment, and then raised the lid, to see that the box
was half full of a creamy-looking paste, which exhaled an aromatic
odour.

"Is that soap?" I said.

"Yes, to brush over the skins of things I want to preserve. Don't touch
it. You have to wash your hands ever so many times when you've been
using it. Look, that's a starling I began to stuff, but it don't look
much like a bird, does it?"

"Looks more like a pincushion," I said. "What's the cotton for?"

"Oh, that's to keep the wings in their places till they're dry. You
wind cotton over them, and that holds their feathers down, but I didn't
get this one right."

"He's too big and fat," I said.

"Yes, I stuffed him too much; but I'm going t