"There are numberless things to consider. If I say, 'Up at six every morning,' up at six it would have to be." "And should be, sir." "If I say, 'Every day's work completely done, every day's accounts satisfactorily made up, before the next day commences,' it would have to be. That fowl of yours is crowing louder, Timothy. No shirking of work by the excuse that it doesn't belong to the duties I engage a lad for. You understand all this?" "I understand it, sir." "On the other hand, satisfaction given, the cart would run along smoothly. There might be a little time in the evening for study and reading; there might be sundry pleasant interludes which one can't think of right off. Eh, Timothy?" "Yes, sir." "You had it in your mind?" "I did, sir." "But," said Mr. Loveday, glancing at the lad, "there is one most important question--the question of respectability." "There's nothing against me, sir. You may inquire of everybody I've worked for." "I mean the question of a respectable appearance. Now, Timothy, you will not have the assurance to assert that _you_ present a respectable appearance?" "Cluck! cluck! cluck?" went the fowl in the basket. Timothy's eyes wandered dolefully over his ragged garments. "If my new suit of clothes hadn't been burnt," he murmured-- "But they are burnt. Spilled milk, you know. The long and the short of it is, if you can obtain a decent suit of clothes, I'll give you a trial, Timothy." "Cluck! cluck! cluck! Cluck! cluck! cluck!" from the basket. A jubilant, noisy, triumphant flourish of trumpets, to force upon the world the knowledge of a great event. Timothy knelt down, put his hand in the basket, and drew forth a new-laid egg. "The world's mine oyster, which I with knife will ope." But surely that knife never presented itself, as it did at the present moment, in the form of a new laid-egg. CHAPTER XI.