Thus things went on for the remaining portion of the “half,” which lasted only about six weeks more. Dick set himself to the work of making everything “handy” for her with enthusiasm in his odd hours, which were few, for his services at the rafts were demanded imperatively from earliest morning till the late evening after sunset, when the river dropped into darkness. “The gentlemen,” it is true, were all cleared off their favourite stream by nine o’clock; but the local lovers of the Thames would linger on it during those summer nights, especially when there was a moon, till poor Dick, putting himself across in his boat when all at last was silent--the last boating party disposed of, and the small craft all ranged in their places ready for to-morrow--would feel his arms scarcely able to pull the light sculls, and his limbs trembling under him. Even then, after his long day’s work, when he had eaten his supper, he would set to work to put up the shelves he had promised his mother, or to fix upon his walls the pictures which delighted himself. Dick began with the lowest rudiments of art, the pictures in the penny papers, with which he almost papered his walls; but his taste advanced as his pennies grew more plentiful: the emotional prints of the ‘Police News’ ceased to charm him, and he rose to the pictures of the ‘Illustrated,’ or whatever might be the picture-paper of the time. This advance--so quickly does the mind work--took place in the six weeks that remained of the half; and by the time “the gentlemen” left, and work slackened, Dick’s room was already gorgeous, with here and there a mighty chromo, strong in tint and simple in subject, surrounded with all manner of royal progresses and shows of various kinds, as represented in the columns of the prints aforesaid. He grew handy, too, in amateur carpentering, having managed to buy himself some simple tools; and when he had a spare moment he betook himself to the bits of simple carving which Val had handed over to him, and worked at them with a real enjoyment which proved his possession of some germ at least of artistic feeling. The boy never had a moment unemployed with all these occupations, necessary and voluntary. He was as happy as the day was long, always ready with a smile and pleasant word, always sociable, not given to calculating his time too nicely, or to grumbling if some of his “mates” threw upon his willing shoulders more than his share of work. The boating people about got to know him, and among the boys he had already become highly popular. Very grand personages indeed--Lichen himself, for instance, than whom there could be no more exalted being--would talk to him familiarly; and some kind lads, finding out his tastes, brought him pictures of which they themselves had got tired, and little carved brackets from their walls, and much other rubbish of this description, all of which was delightful to Dick.