“James is wonderful strong, sir, in the arm,” Mrs. Holl said, “wonderful strong. He began that clambering work when he was about twelve year old. He was pale like and thin, and the doctor said he ought to go out in the air, and not always sit indoors. Well, sir, James he could not abear the thought of going out much, being drawed about in a cart, but he thought if father could put up a pole, across over his head, he might make a shift to draw himself up and down, and so exercise himself a bit. Well, sir, father he put up a pole, and in time James he got to be like a monkey, he could swing himself up with one arm and hang ever so long. After a bit, father he got the thought of setting some handles in the beams there, and the ladder to get up to them, and it were a great amusement for James; I have seen him go right round the room ten times; as for the stairs, that were James’s own idea. He were then about fifteen, and father used to carry him up to bed, and all at once it came to him, that if he had handles put on the top of the stairs and along his room, and then a ladder to get down by, he might make shift to go up and down of himself. Father went out that same night and got a blacksmith to make the handles, and that very night James went up to bed by himself. Lor, how pleased the poor lad were, to be sure. But I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for running on so—what can I do for you?” “About ten days since, Mrs. Holl,” Frank said, “my friend and I were at the Serpentine, and your son—he said his name was Evan, I believe—went into the water to fetch out a dog.” “He did, sir; are you the gentleman, sir, who was going in to fetch him out?” “Just so, Mrs. Holl. Now I was very much pleased with him, and I have come here for two things to-day: the one to give him a sovereign which a friend of mine, to whom I was speaking of your boy’s pluck, gave me for him. Here it is; will you lay it out in something useful to him? The other reason was, I want a boy to be a general useful sort of lad—messenger or domestic, in fact for all sorts of things. Now it seems to me your son would be just the thing for me. I don’t of course know anything of him, but from what I have seen I have no doubt we should get on very well together, and I think he would be very comfortable with me.” “I am sure you are very good, sir,” Mrs. Holl said, gratefully, “very good, and I should think Evan very lucky to get such a place. I can’t answer for him, sir, but I should say he would jump at it” “Let him think it over, Mrs. Holl, and let him come up and see me any time before Thursday evening, when I may be going out of town for a week. Here is my card. By Jove! what beautiful wax flowers; look, Prescott, are they not exquisitely made?” and Frank went across the room to look at James Holl’s handiwork. “They are beautifully made,” Prescott said, examining them; “I saw your son was at work at them when we came in.”