pray you let me mind your pigeons. You'll be none the worse of a
lad about the place, and I shall be happy all the days of my life.
Sir, I'm not unthankful, but please GOD, I should like to have
a home, and to be with them house doves.

"From your humble servent--hoping to be--

"JACK MARCH."

"Mr. Darwin, Sir. I love them Tumblers as if they was my own."

Daddy Darwin thought hard and thought long over that letter. He changed
his mind fifty times a day. But Friday was the Board day, and when
Friday came he "faced the Board." And the little workhouse lad went home
to Daddy Darwin's Dovecot.



SCENE V.


The bargain was oddly made, but it worked well. Whatever Jack's
parentage may have been (and he was named after the stormy month in
which he had been born), the blood that ran in his veins could not have
been beggar's blood. There was no hopeless, shiftless, invincible
idleness about him. He found work for himself when it was not given him
to do, and he attached himself passionately and proudly to all the
belongings of his new home.

"Yon lad of yours seem handy enough, Daddy;--for a vagrant, as one may