He was the slowest boy on earth, and had been sacked at three places in
two weeks, so his parents had apprenticed him to a naturalist. But even
he found him slow. It took him two hours to give the canaries their
seed, three to stick a pin through a dead butterfly, and four to pick a
convolvulus. The only point about him was that he was willing.
"And what," he asked, having spent a whole afternoon changing the
goldfishes' water, "shall I do now, sir?"
The naturalist ran his fingers through his locks.
"Well, Robert," he replied at length, "I think you might now take the
tortoise out for a run."