fired his soul with two distinct ambitions. First, to be a choir-boy;
and, secondly, to dwell in Daddy Darwin's Dovecot. He turned the matter
over in his mind, and patched together the following facts:

The Board of Guardians meant to apprentice him, Jack, to some master, at
the earliest opportunity. Daddy Darwin (so the old pauper told him) was
a strange old man, who had come down in the world, and now lived quite
alone, with not a soul to help him in the house or outside it. He was
"not to say _mazelin_ yet, but getting helpless, and uncommon
mean."

A nephew came one fine day and fetched away the old pauper, to his great
delight. It was by their hands that Jack despatched a letter, which the
nephew stamped and posted for him, and which was duly delivered on the
following morning to Mr. Darwin of the Dovecot.

The old man had no correspondents, and he looked long at the letter
before he opened it. It did credit to the teaching of the workhouse
schoolmistress:

"HONORED SIR,

"They call me Jack March. I'm a workhouse lad, but, sir, I'm a
good one, and the Board means to 'prentice me next time. Sir,
if you face the Board and take me out you shall never regret it.
Though I says it as shouldn't I'm a handy lad. I'll clean a floor
with any one, and am willing to work early and late, and at your
time of life you're not what you was, and them birds must take a
deal of seeing to. I can see them from the garden when I'm set
to weed, and I never saw nought like them. Oh, sir, I do beg and