"I went to bed very late; I'd had a good hard night of it, and I had to get up very early to do something I wanted to Miss Emily's bit of garden." "Miss Emily is the doctor's daughter?" "Yes, sir. I don't know how long I'd been asleep, but it was dark when I woke up all of a sudden with a singing in my ears, and a lot of other sounds that I can't describe. Then I heard some one sing out 'Fire!' I'm pretty quick, sir, as a rule, and I got into my old clothes in less than no time, and ran out of the room. Sure enough, the house was on fire. Miss Emily was crying for her mother, and Dr. Porter was running about like a madman. I raced to Mrs. Porter's room, and helped to get her out, and then we stood and watched the fire burning up the house. There wasn't a drop of water except what we could get from the pump, and that came out with a dribble. A fire-engine came up when it was too late. By that time the house was a mass of flames. There wasn't one bit of furniture saved, nor a book. All their clothes were burnt, and everything they had, except what they stood upright in. My new suit of clothes went too, but I didn't think of that; I was too sorry for Miss Emily and her mother and father. We had a dreadful time, and when daylight came the whole house and everything in it was a heap of ashes. Some friends took Dr. Porter and his wife and Miss Emily away, and I hung about, almost dazed out of my senses. I saved one thing, though--this fowl here, and the basket. The next day I saw Dr. Porter. 'My lad,' he said, 'I owe you a week's wages; here's your florin; I'm a ruined man, and you must look out for another situation.' He spoke nothing but the truth, sir; he _was_ ruined; he wasn't insured for a penny. I wouldn't take the florin; I told him about this fowl that I'd saved, and I asked him to let me have that instead. 'Take it and welcome,' he said, 'and your florin too.' But I wouldn't. I wanted badly to see Miss Emily to tell her how sorry I was, and to wish her good-bye, but Dr. Porter had sent her off I don't know where, so I had to come away without seeing her. That's the whole story, sir." "A sad story, Timothy." "Yes, sir, you may well say that." "What are you going to do now?" "That's what's puzzling me, sir." And Timothy cast a wistful look at the bookseller. "Take this book in your hand. Open it anywhere. Now read." Timothy opened the book, and with great fluency read from the top of the page. "That will do," said Mr. Loveday. "You can write, you say. Sit down there; here's paper, here's a pen. Now write what I say. 'The world is filled with fools and bunglers, and a few clever men. A small proportion of these clever men grow rich, because they are that way inclined; the majority die poor, because they are not entirely sordid-minded. The fools and bunglers grow so in a small measure from inheritance, in a large measure from indolence and a lack of judicious training.' Give it to me." He examined the paper carefully.