fe, and I scarcely
suppose you'll be satisfied to go to her for my character."

"I'm not so sure of that!" laughed the baker. "If she'd speak truth,
she could give you the character best worth having of any."

"She never yet spoke any thing else, nor did I."

"_Ha, jolife_!--you must be a fine pair. Well, now, speak the truth,
and tell me why a decent, tidy-seeming young fellow like you can't get a
character to give me."

"Because I should have to put my wife in peril, if I went back to do
it," was the bold answer.

"Ha, so!" Such a possibility, in those rough days, was only too
apparent to the honest baker. "Well, well! Had to run from a bad
master, eh? Ay, ay, I see."

He did not see exactly the accurate details of the facts; but the
applicant did not contradict him.

"Well! I could do with another hand, it's true; and I must say I like
the look of you. How long have you been a baker's man?"

"When I've been with you seven days, it'll be just a week," was the
humorous reply.

"What, you've all to learn? That's a poor lookout."

"A man that has all to learn, and has a will to it, will serve you
better than one that has less to learn, and has no will to it."

"Come, I can't gainsay that. What have you been, then?"

"I have been watchman in a castle."

"Oh, ho!--how long?"

"Fifteen years."

"And what gives you a mind to be a baker?"

"Well, more notions than one. It's a clean trade, and of good repute;
wholesome, for aught I know: there's no killing in it, for which I
haven't a mind; and as folks must eat, it does not depend on fashion
like some things. Moths don't get into bread and spoil it, nor rust
neither; and if you can't sell it, you can eat it yourself, and you're
no worse off, or not much. It dries and gets stale, of course, in time:
but one can't have every thing; and seems to me there's as little risk
in bread, and as little dirt or worry, as there is in any thing one can
put one's hand to do. I'm not afraid of work, but I don't like dirt,
loss, nor worry."

The fat baker chuckled. "Good for you, my lad!--couldn't have put it
better myself. Man was made to labour, and I like to see a man that's
not afraid of work. Keep clear of worry by all means; it eats a man's
heart out, which honest work never does. Work away, and sing at your
work--that's my notion: and it's the way to get on and be happy."

"I'm glad to hear it; I always do," said the applicant. "And mind you,