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.”