"Because pictures are a Drug."

He added that even talent was not saleable
unless it got into the Great Grooves; and then
looked at Mrs. Dodd; she replied that
unfortunately those Grooves were not always
accessible. The City firm had received her stiffly,
and inquired for whom she had worked.
"Children, my heart fell at that question. I
was obliged to own myself an amateur and beg a
trial. However, I gave Madame Blanch's card:
but Mr.—I don't know which partner it was—
said he was not acquainted with her: then he
looked a little embarrassed, I thought, and said
the Firm did not care to send its stuff to ladies
not in the business; I might cut it to waste,
or He said no more; but I do really think
he meant I might purloin it."

"Why wasn't I there to look him into the
earth? Oh, mamma, that you should be
subjected to all this!"

"Be quiet, child; I had only to put on my
armour; and do you know what my armour is?
Thinking of my children. So I put on my armour,
and said quietly, we were not so poor but we
could pay for a piece of cloth should I be so un-
fortunate as to spoil it; and I offered in plain
terms to deposit the price as security. But he
turned as stiff at that as his yard measure;
' that was not Cross and Co.'s way of doing business,'
he said. But it is unreasonable to be
dejected at a repulse or two: and I am not out of
spirits; not much:" with this her gentle, mouth
smiled; and her patient eyes were moist.

The next day, just after breakfast, was announced
a gentleman from the City. He made
his bow and produced a parcel, which proved to
be a pattern cloak. "Order, ladies," said he
briskly, "from Cross, Mtchett, and Co., Primrose-
lane. Porter outside with the piece. You can
come in, sir." Porter entered with a bale.
"Please sign this, ma'am." Mrs. Dodd signed
a receipt for the stuff, with an undertaking to
deliver it in cloaks at 11, Primrose-lane, in such
a time. Porter retreated. The other said, " Our
Mr. Pitchett wishes you to observe this fall in
the pattern. It is new."

"I will, sir. Am I to trouble you with any
money—by way of deposit, sir?"

"No orders about it, ma'am. Ladies, your
most obedient. Good morning, sir."

And he was away.

All this seemed like a click or two of City
clockwork: followed by rural silence. Yet in
that minute commerce had walked in upon
genteel poverty, and left honest labour and
modest income behind her.

Great was the thankfulness, strange and new
the excitement. Edward was employed to set
up a very long deal table for his mother to work
on, Julia to go and buy tailors' scissors.
Calculations were made how to cut the stuff to advantage,
and in due course the heavy scissors were
heard snick, snick, snicking all day long.

Julia painted zealously, and Edward, without
saying a word to them, walked twenty miles a
day hunting for a guinea a week; and finding it
not. Not but what employment was often
bobbed before his eyes: but there was no grasping
it. At last he heard of a place peculiarly
suited to him; a packing foreman's in a
warehouse at Southwark; he went there, and was re
ferred to Mr. A.'s private house. Mr. A. was in
the country for a day. Try Mr. B. Mr. B. was
dining with the Lord Mayor. Returning belated,
he fell in with a fire; and, sad to say, life was in
jeopardy: a little old man had run out at the
first alarm, when there was no danger, and, as
soon as the fire was hot, had run in again for his
stockings, or some such treasure. Fire does put
out some people's reason; clean. While he was
rummaging madly, the staircase caught, and the
smoke cut off his second exit, and drove him up
to a little staircase window at the side of the
house. Here he stood, hose in hand, scorching
behind and screaming in front. A ladder had
been brought: but it was a yard short: and the
poor old man danced on the window-ledge and
dare not come down to a gallant fireman who
stood ready to receive him at great personal peril.
In the midst of shrieks and cries and shouts of
encouragement, Edward, a practised gymnast, saw
a chance. He ran up the ladder like a cat, begged
the fireman to clasp it tight; then got on his
shoulders and managed to grasp the window-sill:
he could always draw his own weight up by his
hands: so he soon had his knee on the sill, and
presently stood erect. He then put his left arm
inside the window, collared the old fellow with
his right, and, half persuasion, half force, actually
lowered him to the ladder with one Herculean
arm amidst a roar that made the Borough ring;
such a strain could not long be endured; but the
fireman speedily relieved him by seizing the old
fellow's feet and directing them on to the ladder,
and so, propping him by the waist, went down
before him, and landed him safe. Edward waited
till they were down: then begged them to hold
the ladder tight below; he hung from the ledge,
got his eye well on the ladder below him, let
himself quietly drop, and caught hold of it with
hands of iron, and twisting round, came down the
ladder on the inside hand over head without
using his feet, a favourite gymnastic exercise of
his learnt at the Modern Athens. He was warmly
received by the crowd and by the firemen. "You
should be one of us, sir," said a fine young fellow
who had cheered him and advised him all through.
"I wish to Heaven I was," said Edward: the
other thought he was joking, but laughed and
said, "Then you should talk to our head man after
the business; there is a vacancy, you know."

Edward saw the fire out, and rode home on the
engine. There he applied to the head man for the
vacancy.

"You are a stranger to me, sir," said the head
man. " And I'm sure it is no place for you; you
are a gentleman."

"Well; is there anything ungentlemanly in
saving people's lives and property?"