“Would you undertake to set all right if my father made you a reasonable offer?”

“I would—provided I found nothing beyond the scope of my experience.”

“Well, if my father should come to see the thing as I do, I will let you know. Then would be the time for a definite understanding as to cost.”

“The best way would be that I should come and work for a set time. By the progress I made and what I cost, you could judge whether to continue with the rest.”

Lestrange rang the bell, and ordered the attendant to take the young man to his grandfather.

The two wandered together over the grounds, and Richard saw much to admire and wonder at, but nothing to approach the hall or the library.

On their way home Simon declared himself in favour of his working at the Mortgrange library, much to his grandson’s surprise. Indeed, the idea tickled his fancy so much that Richard wondered at the oddity of his grandfather’s behaviour.

— Six —

Alice

Soon after his visit to Mortgrange, the young bookbinder went home. John Tuke was shocked with the hardness and blackness of his hands. But his wife insisted their condition was no serious matter. Secretly she was proud of her boy.

Richard supposed, of course, that his father’s annoyance came only from the fear that his touch would no longer be sufficiently delicate for certain parts of his work. Eager to satisfy both his father and himself that his book mending hands had not degenerated, Richard selected the book worthiest of his labour from the ones that were awaiting his return, and set about to mend it at once—in which he was thoroughly successful.

Before doing anything else, however, he was now anxious to learn all that was known for the restoration and repair of the inside of books. In this an old bookseller friend of his father’s was able to give him considerable help. He taught him how to clean letterpress and engravings from ferruginous, fungus, and other kinds of spots. He acquainted him with a process which considerably strengthened paper that had become weak in its cohesion, and when Richard had time to experiment further, he supplied him with valueless letterpress to work upon. His time was thus more than ever occupied. For many weeks he scarcely even read.

Before long, however, he thought that he must see Arthur. He went that evening to call on him, but found other people in the house who could tell him nothing about the family that had left. He would have inquired at the place in the city where Arthur worked, but he did not even know the name of the firm. Once he saw him when riding on the top of an omnibus—looking feebler and paler and more depressed than ever. But when he got down he had lost sight of him, and though he ran up and down the street, he could catch no further glimpse of him.