"You know best, pa," returned his daughter, who shrank timidly from any further discussion with their guest.
Marcus Wilkeson was delighted with the perfect confidence which father and child reposed in him. "Now that this little matter is happily settled," said he, "I must tell you that I have already taken the liberty of selecting a school for her."
"How can we ever repay your goodness?" said Mr. Minford.
"It is situated only two blocks away," pursued Marcus.
"Capital!" cried Mr. Minford; "for then she will never be far from home."
"And if you want me at any time, pa, you can send for me, and I can be here in a moment," said Pet. "It will be so delightful!"
"It is a private school, and, if your daughter prefers, she can be taught separately from the other pupils. Miss Pillbody, the teacher, tells me that she can give her an hour and a half in the morning, before ten o'clock, and half an hour in the afternoon, after four o'clock."
"That will suit me exactly, pa," cried Pet, clapping her hands with glee; "because then I can get your breakfast, dinner, and supper, and do all the housework, without any interruption in my studies."
"Miss Pillbody thought the arrangement would suit you. She is a perfectly competent teacher of French, Italian, the English branches, music, drawing, the dead languages, and higher mathematics--quite a prodigy, I assure you, for a lady not yet twenty-two years old." (Marcus was addressing the father.) "I have been particular in my inquiries, and all who know her speak in the highest terms of her remarkable attainments, her ability to teach others, and her goodness of heart. Your daughter will like her, without doubt."
"I know I shall," said Pet, with enthusiasm. "There are so many things that I will learn, pa. First, music--"
"She has a fine piano, and plays splendidly," remarked the guest. "I heard her."
"And French and Italian, to please you, pa--that is, if I can learn them--and everything else that the lady will teach me. I shall be so happy, sir."
The father and the guest smiled at the zeal with which this young beginner proposed to grapple with the difficulties of human knowledge. It was fortunate for her that a long series of hard and injudicious teachers had not already sickened her of learning, and that she brought a fresh and uncorrupted taste to the work.
Pet was thinking which one of her two dresses (equally faded) she should wear to school, and what bit of ribbon or trimming she could introduce in her old bonnet, to improve its general effect. Marcus Wilkeson was marvelling at the confidence which the inventor and his daughter placed in him, and at what there was about him to inspire it. Mr. Minford was congratulating himself on having met with a man so generous and sincere as this Mr. Wilkeson, and so entirely disinterested, too: "For," reasoned the inventor, "he cannot appreciate, as I do, the enormous value of my discovery, and does not dream that his portion of it will compensate him for his outlay more than a hundred times over."
The silence was broken by a sound as of heavy boots trying to move softly on the stairs, and a subsequent modest rap at the door.
CHAPTER III.
AN AUXILIARY OF MODERN CIVILIZATION.
The boy Bog rapped, and entered. He was more neatly dressed than when Marcus saw him on the occasion of his first visit. His patched and threadbare coat was replaced by a neat roundabout jacket; his greasy, visorless cap, by a flat felt hat, of which the brim was symmetrically turned up; his tattered shoes by great cowhide boots. The boy was of that age when the human frame grows with vegetable-like rapidity; and he seemed to hare increased a little all around within three weeks.
The boy looked distressingly awkward in his new articles of attire. Had he stolen them, he could not have appeared more guilty in presence of the rightful owner.
"Why, Bog!" said Mr. Minford, reproachfully; "where have you been these three weeks? Not called to see us once!"
The boy's confusion increased at this unexpected salutation, and he hung down his head at the threshold of the door. Mr. Minford partly reassured his bashful visitor, by springing forward, shaking him heartily by the hand, and saying, with earnestness, "My good lad, I am always glad to see you." Pet was also by his side in an instant, and warmly shaking the other hand. "You look real nice, Bog," said she. Mr. Wilkeson also came forward, and said, "Don't you remember me, Bog?" and clasped him by the right hand when the inventor had relinquished It.
Bog bowed and scraped and blushed, and murmured "Thank you, very well," several times, confusedly, and at last settled down into a chair which was pushed under him by Pet. Having crossed his legs, he began to feel a little more at ease.
"You've been very busy of late, haven't you, Bog?" asked Pet, charitably anticipating an excuse for the boy's long absence.
"You'd better believe it," replied Bog, not looking at her, but studying the pattern of his left boot. "The day after I called here last, Mr. Fink he got a job to stick up bills for a new hair dye, all the way from here to Dunkirk, on the Erie Railroad. Well, he couldn't go, cos he had lots o' city posting, ye see; so he hires me to do it for ten dollars a week and expenses. The pay was good, he said, because the work was extry hard. The bills was to be posted on new whitewashed fences, new houses, and places generally where there was signs up telling people not to 'post no bills.'"
"That was a singular direction, Bog," said Mr. Minford.
"So I told Mr. Fink," replied the boy; "but he said as how them were the hair-dye man's orders. He said the idea was to make folks look at bills who wouldn't notice 'em if they was on a place all covered over with adv'tisements. They was to be posted up high and strong, so that the owner of the property couldn't tear 'em down easy. Mr. Fink thought the idea was a good one; but he owned it was a little risky."
"Perhaps that is why he didn't care to do it himself," suggested Marcus Wilkeson.
"Mebbe," said Bog; "but I didn't consider it no objection. I told him I was goin' to be a bill poster, and wanted to study every branch o' the business." At this point Bog hitched his chair nervously, uncrossed and recrossed his legs, as if he were conscious of trespassing on the patience of his auditors, and then went on: "Well, I hurried home, and saw that aunt didn't want for nothin', and then I started on my travels. I should ha' called and seen you, Mr. Minford," he added, casting a side glance at the inventor, "but I hadn't time."
"No excuse necessary, my good Bog," returned Mr. Minford, kindly. "Business before pleasure, you know. But I am anxious to hear how you got along with the job."
"Well, pooty hard," said Bog, emphatically, "though I made out to go all through the State, and stick up six thousand bills, every one on 'em on a new house, shop, or fence. Lemme see--I was chased seven times by big dogs that was set on me, shot at three times"
"Why, poor Bog!" interrupted Pet; "you wern't hurt, I hope?"
"No, Miss Minford; I wasn't hurt," answered Bog, looking her in the face for the first time since he entered the house, "though I got one through my old cap."
"I'm so glad it was no worse, Bog."
These words of sympathy from the young girl flustered the poor boy for a minute. Then he rallied:
"Besides that, I was took up four times by the perlice, and was carried afore justices of the peace. When they asked what I had to say why I shouldn't be fined, I told 'em the whole truth about it, and they all laughed except one, and said it was really