should have been starved long since if I
hadn't. My business is bird-stuffing, as
you may have heard or guessed, and where
should I have been if I'd had to live
upon all the orders for bird-stuffing I got
from the labouring classes? They can't
stuff themselves enough, let alone their
birds! The swells want owls, and hawks,
and pheasants, and what not stuffed with
outspread wings for fire-screens, but the
poor people want the fire itself, and want
it so badly that they never hollow for
screens, and wouldn't use 'em if they had
'em. No, no; hate the swells, my boy, but
use 'em. What have you been?"

"An usher in a school!"

"Of course! I guessed it would be some
of those delightful occupations for which
the supply is unlimited and the demand
nothing, but I scarcely thought it could be
so bad as that! Usher in a school! hewer
in a coal-pit, stone-breaker on a country
road, horse in a mill, anything better than
that!"

"What could I do?"

"What could you do? Sell your books,
pawn your watch, take a steerage passage
and go out to Australia. Black boots, tend
sheep, be cad to an omnibus, or shopwalker
to a store out there, every one of 'em better
than dragging on in the conventional torture
of this played-out staggering old country!
That's a little gassy you'll think, and so it
is, but I mean better than that. I've long-
standing and intimate connexions with the
Zoological Acclimatisation Society in Melbourne,
and, if you can pay your passage
out, I'll guarantee that in the introductions
I give you, they'll find you something to
do. If you can't find the money for your
passage out, perhaps it can be found for
you!"

Not since James Ashurst's death, not
for some weeks before that event indeed,
when the stricken man had taken leave of
his old pupil and friend, had Walter Joyce
heard the words of friendship and kindness
from any man. Perhaps, a little unmanned
by the disappointment and humiliation he
had undergone since his arrival in London,
he was a little unmanned at this speech
from his newly found friend; at all events
the tears stood in his eyes, and his voice
was husky, as he replied:

"I ought to be very much obliged to
you, and indeed, indeed I am! but I fear
you'll think me an ungrateful cub when I
tell you that I can't possibly go away from
England. Possibly is a strong word, but
I mean, that I can't think of it until I've
exhausted every means, every chance of
obtaining the barest livelihood here!"

The old man eyed him from under his
bent brows earnestly for a moment, and
then said abruptly. "Ties, eh? father?"

"No!" said Joyce, with a half blush—
very young, you see, and country bred—
"as both my mother and father are dead,
but—but there is——"

"Oh Lord!" grunted Mr. Byrne; "of
course there is, there always is in such
cases! Blind old bat I was not to see
it at first! Ah, she was left lamenting,
and all the rest of it, quite knocks the
Australian idea on the head! Now, let
me think what can be done for you here!
There's Buncombe and Co., the publishers,
want a smart young man, smart and cheap
they said in their letter, to contribute to
their new Encyclopædia, The Naturalist.
That'll be one job for you, though it won't
be much."

"But, Mr. Byrne," said Joyce, "I have
no knowledge, or very little, of natural history.
Certainly not enough to——"

"Just too much to prevent your being
too proud to take a hint or two from Goldsmith's
Animated Nature, my boy, as he
took several from those who preceded
him. That, and a German book or two
you'll find on the shelves—you understand
German? That's right—will help you to all
the knowledge Buncombe will require of
you, or all they ought to expect for the
matter of that, at ten and six the column.
You can come here of a morning, you
won't interfere with me, and grind away
until dark, when we'll have a walk and
a talk; you shall tell me all about yourself,
and we'll see what more can be done, and
then we'll have some food at Bliffkins's and
learn all that's going on!"

"I don't know how to thank you," commenced
Joyce.

"Then don't attempt to learn!" said
the old man. "Does it suit you, as a beginning
only, mind! do you agree to try it—we
shall do better things yet, I hope; but will
you try it?"

"I will indeed! If you only knew——"

"I do! good-night! I got up at daybreak,
and ought to have been in bed long
since! Good-night!"

Not since he had been in London, had
Walter Joyce been so light of heart as
when he closed Mr. Byrne's door behind
him. Something to do at last! He felt
inclined to cry out for joy; he longed for
some one to whom he could impart his
good fortune.