All that day Frank tramped the streets. He went into many shops where
he saw notices that an errand boy was required, but everywhere without
success. He perceived at once that his appearance was against him, and
he either received the abrupt answer of, “You're not the sort of chap
for my place,” or an equally decided refusal upon the grounds that
he did not know the neighborhood, or that they preferred one who had
parents who lived close by and could speak for him.
At six o'clock he rejoined the porter. He brought with him some bread
and butter and a piece of bacon. When, on arriving at the lodging of
his new friend, a neat room with two small beds in it, he produced and
opened his parcel, the porter said angrily, “Don't you do that again,
young fellow, or we shall have words. You're just coming to stop with
me for a bit till you see your way, and I'm not going to have you bring
things in here. My money is good for two months, and your living here
with me won't cost three shillings a week. So don't you hurt my feelings
by bringing things home again. There, don't say no more about it.”
Frank, seeing that his companion was really in earnest, said no more,
and was the less reluctant to accept the other's kindness as he saw that
his society was really a great relief to him in his trouble. After the
meal they sallied out to a second hand clothes shop. Here Frank disposed
of his things, and received in return a good suit of clothes fit for a
working lad.
“I don't know how it is,” the porter said as they sat together
afterwards, “but a gentleman looks like a gentleman put him in what
clothes you will. I could have sworn to your being that if I'd never
seen you before. I can't make it out, I don't know what it is, but
there's certainly something in gentle blood, whatever you may say
about it. Some of my mates are forever saying that one man's as good as
another. Now I don't mean to say they ain't as good; but what I say is,
as they ain't the same. One man ain't the same as another any more than
a race horse is the same as a cart horse. They both sprang from the same
stock, at least so they says; but breeding and feeding and care has made
one into a slim boned creature as can run like the wind, while the other
has got big bones and weight and can drag his two ton after him without
turning a hair. Now, I take it, it's the same thing with gentlefolks and
working men. It isn't that one's bigger than the other, for I don't see
much difference that way; but a gentleman's lighter in the bone, and
his hands and his feet are smaller, and he carries himself altogether
different. His voice gets a different tone. Why, Lord bless you, when I
hears two men coming along the platform at night, even when I can't see
'em, and can't hear what they says, only the tone of their voices, I
knows just as well whether it's a first class or a third door as I've
got to open as if I saw 'em in the daylight. Rum, ain't it?”
Frank had never thought the matter out, and could only give his general
assent to his companion's proposition.
“Now,” the porter went on, “if you go into a factory or workshop, I'll
bet a crown to a penny that before you've been there a week you'll get
called Gentleman Jack, or some such name. You see if you ain't.”
“I don't care what they call me,” Frank laughed, “so that they'll take
me into the factory.”
“All in good time,” the porter said; “don't you hurry yourself. As
long as you can stay here you'll be heartily welcome. Just look what
a comfort it is to have you sitting here sociable and comfortable. You
don't suppose I could have sat here alone in this room if you hadn't
been here? I should have been in a public house making a beast of
myself, and spending as much money as would keep the pair of us.”
Day after day Frank went out in search of work. In his tramps he visited
scores of workshops and factories, but without success. Either they
did not want boys, or they declined altogether to take one who had no
experience in work, and had no references in the neighborhood. Frank
took his breakfast and tea with the porter, and was glad that the latter
had his dinner at the station, as a penny loaf served his purposes. One
day in his walks Frank entered Covent Garden and stood looking on at the
bustle and flow of business, for it happened to be market day. He leaned
against one of the columns of the piazza, eating the bread he had just
bought. Presently a sharp faced lad, a year or two younger than himself,
came up to him.
“Give us a hit,” he said, “I ain't tasted nothing today.”
Frank broke the bread in half and gave a portion to him.
“What a lot there is going on here!” Frank said.
“Law!” the boy answered, “that ain't nothing to what it is of a morning.
That's the time, 'special on the mornings of the flower market. It's
hard lines if a chap can't pick up a tanner or even a bob then.”
“How?” Frank asked eagerly.
“Why, by holding horses, helping to carry out plants, and such like. You
seems a green 'un, you do. Up from the country, eh? Don't seem like one
of our sort.”
“Yes,” Frank said, “I'm just up from the country. I thought it would be
easy to get a place in London, but I don't find it so.”
“A place!” the boy repeated scornfully. “I should like any one to see me
in a place. It's better a hundred times to be your own master.”
“Even if you do want a piece of bread sometimes?” Frank put in.
“Yes,” the boy said. “When it ain't market day and ye haven't saved
enough to buy a few papers or boxes of matches it does come hard. In
winter the times is bad, but in summer we gets on fairish, and there
ain't nothing to grumble about. Are you out of work yourself?”
“Yes,” Frank answered, “I'm on the lookout for a job.”
“You'd have a chance here in the morning,” said the boy, looking at him.
“You look decent, and might get a job unloading. They won't have us at
no price, if they can help it.”
“I will come and try anyhow,” Frank said.
That evening Frank told his friend, the porter, that he thought of going
out early next morning to try and pick up odd jobs at Covent Garden.
“Don't you think of it,” the porter said. “There's nothing worse for a
lad than taking to odd jobs. It gets him into bad ways and bad company.
Don't you hurry. I have spoken to lots of my mates, and they're all on
the lookout for you. We on the platform can't do much. It ain't in our
line, you see; but in the goods department, where they are constant
with vans and wagons and such like, they are likely enough to hear of
something before long.”
That night, thinking matters over in bed, Frank determined to go down to
the docks and see if he could get a place as cabin boy. He had had this
idea in his mind ever since he lost his money, and had only put it aside
in order that he might, if possible, get some berth on shore which might
seem likely in the end to afford him a means of making his way up again.
It was not that he was afraid of the roughness of a cabin boy's life; it
was only because he knew that it would be so very long before, working
his way up from boy to able bodied seaman, he could obtain a mate's
certificate, and so make a first step up the ladder. However, he thought
that even this would be better than going as a wagoner's boy, and he
accordingly crossed London Bridge, turned down Eastcheap, and presently
found himself in Ratcliff Highway. He was amused here at the nautical
character of the shops, and presently found himself staring into a
window full of foreign birds, for the most part alive in cages, among
which, however, were a few cases of stuffed birds.
“How stupid I have been!” he thought to himself. “I wonder I never
thought of it before! I can stuff birds and beasts at any rate a deal
better than those wooden looking things. I might have a chance of
getting work at some naturalist's shop. I will get a directory and take
down all the addresses in London, and then go around.”
He now became conscious of a conversation going on between a little old
man with a pair of thick horn rimmed spectacles and a sailor who had a
dead parrot and a cat in his hand.
“I really cannot undertake them,” the old man said. “Since the death of
my daughter I have had but little time to attend to that branch. What
with buying and selling, and feeding and attending to the live ones, I
have no time for stuffing. Besides, if the things were poisoned, they
would not be worth stuffing.”
“It isn't the question of worth, skipper,” the sailor said; “and I don't
say, mind ye, that these here critturs was pisoned, only if you looks
at it that this was the noisiest bird and the worst tempered thievingest
cat in the neighborhood--though, Lord bless you, my missus wouldn't
allow it for worlds--why, you know, when they were both found stiff and
cold this morning people does have a sort of a suspicion as how they've
been pisoned;” and he winked one eye in a portentous manner, and grinned
hugely. “The missus she's in a nice taking, screeching, and yelling as
you might hear her two cables' length away, and she turns round on me
and will have it as I'd a hand in the matter. Well, just to show my
innocence, I offers to get a glass case for 'em and have 'em stuffed,
if it cost me a couple of pounds. I wouldn't care if they fell all to
pieces a week afterwards, so that it pacified the old woman just at
present. If I can't get 'em done I shall ship at once, for the place
will be too hot to hold me. So you can't do it nohow?”
The old man shook his head, and the sailor was just turning off when
Frank went up to him:
“Will you please wait a moment? Can I speak to you, sir, a minute?” he
asked the old man.
The naturalist went into his shop, and Frank followed him.
“I can stuff birds and animals, sir,” he said. “I think I really stuff
them well, for some which I did for amusement were sold at ten shillings
a case, and the man who bought them of me told me they would be worth
four times as much in London. I am out of work, sir, and very very
anxious to get my living. You will find me hard working and honest. Do
give me a chance. Let me stuff that cat and parrot for the sailor. If
you are not satisfied then, I will go away and charge nothing for it.”
The man looked at him keenly.
“I will at any rate give you a trial,” he said. Then he went to the door
and called in the sailor. “This lad tells me he can stuff birds. I know
nothing about him, but I believe he is speaking truthfully. If you like
to intrust them to him he will do his best. If you're not satisfied he
will make no charge.”
Much pleased at seeing a way out of his dilemma, the sailor placed the
dead animals on the counter.
“Now,” the old man said to Frank, “you can take these out into the back
yard and skin them. Then you can go to work in that back room. You will
find arsenical soap, cotton wool, wires, and everything else you require
there. This has been a fine cat,” he said, looking at the animal.
“Yes, it has been a splendid creature,” Frank answered. “It is a
magnificent macaw also.”
“Ah! you know it is a macaw!” the old man said.
“Of course,” Frank said simply; “it has a tail.”
The old man then furnished Frank with two or three sharp knives and
scissors. Taking the bird and cat, he went out into the yard and in the
course of an hour had skinned them both. Then he returned to the shop
and set to work in the room behind.
“May I make a group of them?” he asked.
“Do them just as you like,” the old man said.
After settling upon his subject, Frank set to work, and, except that
he went out for five minutes to buy and eat a penny loaf, continued his
work till nightfall. The old man came in several times to look at him,
but each time went out again without making a remark. At six o'clock
Frank laid down his tools.
“I will come again tomorrow, sir,” he said.
The old man nodded, and Frank went home in high spirits. There was a
prospect at last of getting something to do, and that in a line most
congenial to his own tastes.
The old man looked up when he entered next morning.
“I shall not come in today,” he remarked. “I will wait to see them
finished.”
Working without interruption till the evening, Frank finished them to
his satisfaction, and enveloped them with many wrappings of thread to
keep them in precisely the attitudes in which he had placed them.
“They are ready for drying now, sir,” he said. “If I might place them in
an oven they would be dried by morning.”
The old man led the way to the kitchen, where a small fire was burning.
“I shall put no more coals on the fire,” he said, “and it will be out in
a quarter of an hour. Put them in there and leave the door open. I will
close it in an hour when the oven cools.”
The next day Frank was again at work. It took him all day to get fur and
feather to lie exactly as he wished them. In the afternoon he asked the
naturalist for a piece of flat board, three feet long, and a perch, but
said that instead of the piece of board he should prefer mounting them
in a case at once. The old man had not one in the shop large enough,
and therefore Frank arranged his group temporarily on the table. On the
board lay the cat. At first sight she seemed asleep, but it was clearly
only seeming. Her eyes were half open, the upper lip was curled up, and
the sharp teeth showed. The hind feet were drawn somewhat under her as
in readiness for an instant spring. Her front paws were before her, the
talons were somewhat stretched, and one paw was curved. Her ears lay
slightly back. She was evidently on the point of springing. The macaw
perch, which had been cut down to a height of two feet, stood behind
her. The bird hung by its feet, and, head downwards, stretched with open
beak towards the tip of the cat's tail, which was slightly uplifted. On
a piece of paper Frank wrote, “Dangerous Play.”
It was evening before he had finished perfectly to his satisfaction.
Then he called the naturalist in. The old man stopped at the door,
surveying the group. Then he entered and examined it carefully.
“Wonderful!” he said. “Wonderful! I should have thought them alive.
There is not a shop in the West End where it could have been turned out
better, if so well.
“Lad, you are a wonder! Tell me now who and what are you? I saw when you
first addressed me that you were not what you seemed to be, a working
lad.”
“I have been well educated,” Frank said, “and was taught to preserve
and stuff by my father, who was a great naturalist. My parents died
suddenly, and I was left on my own resources, which,” he said, smiling
faintly, “have hitherto proved of very small avail. I am glad you are
pleased. If you will take me into your service I will work hard and make
myself useful in every way. If you require references I can refer you
to the doctor who attended us in the country; but I have not a single
friend in London except a railway porter, who has most kindly and
generously taken me in and sheltered me for the last two months.”
“I need no references,” the old man said; “your work speaks for itself
as to your skill, and your face for your character. But I can offer
you nothing fit for you. With such a genius as you have for setting up
animals, you ought to be able to earn a good income. Not one man in a
thousand can make a dead animal look like a live one. You have the knack
or the art.”
“I shall be very content with anything you can give me,” Frank said;
“for the present I only ask to earn my living. If later on I can, as you
say, do more, all the better.”
The old man stood for some time thinking, and presently said, “I do but
little except in live stock. When I had my daughter with me I did a
good deal of stuffing, for there is a considerable trade hereabout. The
sailors bring home skins of foreign birds, and want them stuffed and put
in cases, as presents for their wives and sweethearts. You work fast as
well as skillfully. I have known men who would take a fortnight to do
such a group as that, and then it would be a failure. It will be quite a
new branch for my trade. I do not know how it will act yet, but to begin
with I will give you twelve shillings a week, and a room upstairs. If
it succeeds we will make other arrangements. I am an old man, and a very
lonely one. I shall be glad to have such a companion.”
Frank joyfully embraced the offer, and ran all the way home to tell his
friend, the porter, of the engagement.
“I am very glad,” the man said; “heartily glad. I shall miss you sorely.
I do not know what I should have done without you when I first lost poor
Jane and the kids. But now I can go back to my old ways again.”
“Perhaps,” Frank suggested, “you might arrange to have a room also in
the house. It would not be a very long walk, not above twenty or five
and twenty minutes, and I should be so glad to have you with me.”
The man sat silent for a time. “No,” he said at last, “I thank you all
the same. I should like it too, but I don't think it would be best in
the end. Here all my mates live near, and I shall get on in time. The
Christmas holiday season will soon be coming on and we shall be up
working late. If you were always going to stop at the place you are
going to, it would be different; but you will rise, never fear. I shall
be seeing you in gentleman's clothes again some of these days. I've
heard you say you were longing to get your books and to be studying
again, and you'll soon fall into your own ways; but if you will let me,
I'll come over sometimes and have a cup of tea and a chat with you. Now,
look 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 from the sailors, and sell them to furriers and feather
preparers, who supply ladies' hat and bonnet makers. In future, I
propose that you shall mount them and sell them direct. We shall get far
higher prices than we do now. I seem to be putting most of the work on
your shoulders, but do not want you to help me in the shop. I will look
after the birds and buy and sell as I used to do; you will have the back
room private to yourself for stuffing and mounting.”
Frank was delighted at this allotment of labor, and was soon at work
rummaging the drawers and picking out specimens for mounting, and made
a selection sufficient to keep him employed for weeks. That evening he
sallied out and expended his two pounds in underlinen, of which he was
sorely in need. As he required them his employer ordered showcases for
the window, of various sizes, getting the backgrounds painted and fitted
up as Frank suggested.
Frank did not get on so fast with his work as he had hoped, for the fame
of the sailor's cat and macaw spread rapidly in the neighborhood, and
there was a perfect rush of sailors and their wives anxious to have
birds and skins, which had been brought from abroad, mounted. The sailor
himself looked in one day.
“If you like another two pounds for that 'ere cat, governor, I'm game
to pay you. It's the best thing that ever happened to me. Every one's
wanting to see 'em, and there's the old woman dressed up in her Sunday
clothes a-sitting in the parlor as proud as a peacock a showing of 'em
off. The house ain't been so quiet since I married. Them animals would
be cheap to me at a ten pound note. They'll get you no end of orders, I
can tell you.”
The orders, indeed, came in much faster than Frank could fulfill them,
although he worked twelve hours a day; laying aside all other work,
however, for three hours in order to devote himself to the shop cases,
which were to be chef d'oeuvres.