CHAPTER VI.


MY FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE CHART.

"Good day," said Mr. George Goodfellow, nodding affably. "I hope I
see you well."

"Pretty well, thank you, sir," I answered.

"And where might you come from, makin' so bold?"

I told him that I was a boarder at Mr. Stimcoe's.

"Then," said Mr. Goodfellow, taking off his coat and extracting a
pencil and a two-foot rule from a pocket at the back of his
small-clothes, "I'm sorry for you. What a female!" He chose out a
long and flexible plank from a stack laid lengthwise in the alley-way
along the base of the wall, lifted it, set it on three trestles, and
began to measure and mark it off. "She's calculated to destroy one's
belief in human nature, that's what she is! Fairly knocks the gilt
off. Sometimes I can't hardly realize that she and Martha belong to
the same sex. Martha is my young woman."

"Yes, sir?"

"Yes. At present she's living in Plymouth, assistant in a