here, I'm going out with you now, and I'm going to buy you a suit
of clothes, something like what you had on when I first saw you. They
won't be altogether unsuitable in a shop. This is a loan, mind, and you
may pay me off as you get flush."

Frank saw he should hurt the good fellow's feelings by refusing, and
accordingly went out with him, and next morning presented himself at the
shop in a quiet suit of dark gray tweed, and with his other clothes in a
bundle.

"Aha!" said the old man; "you look more as you ought to do now, though
you're a cut above an assistant in a naturalist's shop in Ratcliff
Highway. Now, let me tell you the names of some of these birds. They
are, every one of them, foreigners; some of them I don't know myself."

"I can tell all the family names," Frank said quietly, "and the species,
but I do not know the varieties."

"Can you!" the old man said in surprise. "What is this now?"

"That is a mockingbird, the great black capped mockingbird, I think. The
one next to it is a golden lory."

So Frank went round all the cages and perches in the shop.

"Right in every case," the old man said enthusiastically; "I shall have
nothing to teach you. The sailor has been here this morning. I offered
him two pounds for the cat and bird to put in my front window, but he
would not take it, and has paid me that sum for your work. Here it is.
This is yours, you know. You were not in my employment then, and you
will want some things to start with, no doubt. Now come upstairs, I will
show you your room. I had intended at first to give you the one at the
back, but I have decided now on giving you my daughter's. I think you
will like it."

Frank did like it greatly. It was the front room on the second
floor. The old man's daughter had evidently been a woman of taste and
refinement. The room was prettily papered, a quiet carpet covered the
floor, and the furniture was neat and in good keeping. Two pairs of
spotless muslin curtains hung across the windows.

"I put them up this morning," the old man said, nodding. "I have got the
sheets and bedding airing in the kitchen. They have not been out of the
press for the last three years. You can cook in the kitchen. There is
always a fire there.

"Now, the first thing to do," he went on when they returned to the shop,
"will be for you to mount a dozen cases for the windows. These drawers
are full of skins of birds and small animals. I get them for next
to nothing fro