astonishment had
ended when he thought him just well begun.

"How shall I find master Davie?" he asked.

"He is wild to see you, sir. When I've cleared away, just have the
goodness to ring this bell out of that window, and he'll be with you as
fast as he can lay his feet to the ground."

Donal rang the handbell. A shout mingled with the clang of it. Then
came the running of swift feet over the stones of the court, and Davie
burst into the room.

"Oh, sir," he cried, "I am glad! It is good of you to come!"

"Well, you see, Davie," returned Donal, "everybody has got to do
something to carry the world on a bit: my work is to help make a man of
you. Only I can't do much except you help me; and if I find I am not
making a good job of you, I shan't stop many hours after the discovery.
If you want to keep me, you must mind what I say, and so help me to
make a man of you."

"It will be long before I am a man!" said Davie rather disconsolately.

"It depends on yourself. The boy that is longest in becoming a man, is
the boy that thinks himself a man before he is a bit like one."

"Come then, let us do something!" said Davie.

"Come away," rejoined Donal. "What shall we do first?"

"I don't know: you must tell me, sir."

"What would you like best to do--I mean if you might do what you
pleased?"

Davie thought a little, then said:

"I should like to write a book."

"What kind of a book?"

"A beautiful story."

"Isn't it just as well to read such a book? Why should you want to
write one?"

"Because then I should have it go just as I wanted it! I am
always--almost always--disappointed with the thing that comes next. But
if I wrote it myself, then I shouldn't get tired of it; it would be
what pleased me, and not what pleased somebody else."

"Well," said Donal, after thinking for a moment, "suppose you begin to
write a book!"

"Oh, that will be fun!--much better than learning verbs and nouns!"

"But the verbs and nouns are just the things that go to make a
story--with not a few adjectives and adverbs, and a host of
conjunctions; and, if it be a very moving story, a good many
interjections! These all you have got to put together with good
choice, or the story will not be one you would care to read.--Perhaps
you had better not begin till I see whether you know enough about those
verbs and nouns to do the thing decently. Show me your school-books."

"There they all are--on that shelf! I haven't opene