Douglas had grown sulky, or rather suspicious of foolery, and was inclined to keep his own counsel. But the accent of this stranger went straight to his heart; he had not heard the Scotch way of speaking for many a day. So he turned and regarded the young man, and frankly told him what he had done with the money. This led to further questions, for the younger man's curiosity was aroused. It was the City of Glasgow Bank, then? But why take to such work as this? Couldn't he get into some office? Did he know a little of book-keeping? The upshot of all this was that, about a week after, John Douglas found himself installed as clerk at a tall desk in the back-room of a co-operative store connected with the docks, at a salary of two pounds a week; and the first and immediate result of this was that the mysterious charitable associations of which he was apparently the agent, commissioned him to inform Mary Ann Ellis that she need not try to get any situation for at least two months' time, because fourteen shillings a week would be paid to her during that period, to enable her to get thoroughly well again. John Douglas grew to be a proud man. He was proud of having paid off that five pounds, and standing free of all the world; he was proud of his gradually-increasing account at the Government Savings Bank as a guarantee against future ill; but he was proudest of all of his patient, whose convalescence he in a measure attributed to himself. The days were longer now, and the weather fine; on the clear evenings, or Saturday afternoons, these two would get into an omnibus, and go away out to Camberwell Green, or Kennington Park, or Clapham Common, and sit on a bench, and watch the young folks enjoying their sports and diversions. He was better dressed now, and she had got into the way of calling him 'Sir.' He told her a great deal about Scotland, and the mountains, and the glens with the birch-trees and waterfalls; but he always got into a difficulty when he came to the sea, which she had never seen. She could not understand that. 'Now, lassie, look at that piece of water there,' he would say to her, at the pond on Clapham Common. 'Cannot you imagine its going out and out until it gets far beyond the trees and houses yonder, until it gets beyond everything, and meets the sky?' 'I see what you mean, sir,' she would say; 'but I can't understand it: for I can't help thinking, if there was nothing on the other side to hold it up, it must tumble down. How can water hold itself up in the air?' 'Dear, dear me, lass!' he would say impatiently, 'have I not explained to ye how everything in the world, land and hills and everything, is held together?' 'Yes, sir; but water shifts so,' she would say; and he would take to something else.