“'If I was quite sure you 'd not take him away--if you 'd give me your word of honor for it--I'd just show him to you, and you 'd see--even tipsy as he's sure to be--if I'm exaggerating.' “'What is he worth to you, Barry?' said I. “'He 's worth--not to reckon private engagements for fireworks in gentlemen's grounds, and the like,--he 's worth from seven to eight pounds a week.' “'And you give him--' “'Well, I don't give him much. It would n't do to give him much; he has no self-control,--no restraint He'd kill himself,--actually kill himself.' “'So that you only give him--' “'Fourteen shillings a week. Not but that I am making a little fund for him, and occasionally remitted his wife--he had a wife--a pound or so, without his knowledge.' “'Well, he's not too dear at that,' said I. 'Now let me see and speak with him, Barry, and if I like him, you shall have a fifty-pound note for him. You know well enough that I needn't pay a sixpence. I have fellows in my employment would track him out if you were to hide him in one of his rocket-canisters; so just be reasonable, and take a good offer.' “He was not very willing at first, but he yielded after a while, and so I became the owner of the Professor, for such they called him.” “Had he no other name?” “Yes; an old parrot, that he had as a pet, called him Tom, and so we accepted that name; and as Tom, or Professor Tom, he is now known amongst us.” “Did you find, after all, that you made a good bargain?” “I never concluded a better, though it has its difficulties; for, as the Professor is almost an idiot when perfectly sober, and totally insensible when downright drunk, there is just a short twilight interval between the two, when his faculties are in good order.” “What can he do at this favorable juncture?” “What can he not? is the question. Why, it was he arranged all the scores for the orchestra after the fire, when we had not a scrap left of the music of the 'Maid of Cashmere.' It was he invented that sunrise, in the last scene of all, with the clouds rolling down the mountains, and all the rivulets glittering as the first rays touch them. It was he wrote the third act of Linton's new comedy; the catastrophe and all were his. It was he dashed off that splendid critique on Ristori, that set the town in a blaze; and then he went home and wrote the parody on 'Myrra' for the Strand, all the same night, for I had watered the brandy, and kept him in the second stage of delirium till morning.” “What a chance! By Jove! Stocmar, you are the only fellow ever picks up a gem of this water!” “It's not every man can tell the stone that will pay for the cutting, Paten, remember that. I 've had to buy this experience of mine dearly enough.” “Are you not afraid that the others will hear of him, and seduce him by some tempting offer?”