He aint no use to us-is he, Jack?"

Jack, Mr. Burls's man shook his head.

"I could repaint that picture where it wants it," said Frank.

"Did you ever restore a picture before? Restoring's an art: it's a thing as isn't learnt in a moment, I can tell you. Pictures cleaned, lined, and restored by a method of our own invention, without injury, and at a moderate charge,'" said Mr. Burls, quoting an inscription in gilt letters over Frank's head. "Now, did you ever clean a picture?"

"No," said Frank.

"Do you think you could do the painting part if I taught you how to clean and restore on the system I invented myself?'

"I think I could," said Frank.

"But if I teach you the secrets of the trade, what are you going to give me ?"

"I'm afraid I can't afford to give you anything," said Frank, "except labour."

"It's worth fifty pounds to anybody to know. Critchett might have made a fortune at it. Look at me. I began as an errand boy. I'm not ashamed of it. A good restorer can always keep himself employed."

'Indeed," said Frank-who contemplated with admiration a man who had been the founder of his own fortune-"I should very much like to learn the art of restoring, as I have not been successful in getting a living as an artist."

"Well," said the dealer, "I'll see first what you're up to, and whether you can paint well enough for me if I was to teach you the restoring. You may come upstairs. Bring that picture up on your shoulder."

Frank hoisted the canvas aloft, and followed Mr. Burls up the stairs.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.

T was not very easy for Frank to get the picture round the turns of the narrow staircase, which led from Mr. Burls's shop to the room above, which he called the gallery. In this room, Frank saw that there were a number of pictures hanging round the walls, and on several tall screens. They were of a better class than those in the shop. Mr. Burls led the way through the gallery to a narrow flight of stairs at the end. Mounting these, with the canvas on his shoulder, Frank found. more rooms full of pictures, framed and unframed, in stacks that reached up to his chin.

On the floor above, a number of men were employed in gilding and repairing frames. Up one more flight of stairs, and they were on the attic floor, apparently the sanctum of Mr. Critchett, the restorer-for in a little back room were his easels and palettes, and his battered tubes of paint, and several short and very black clay pipes.

"I find the materials," said Mr. Burls. "I've paid for all the paints and brushes, so I suppose they're mine."

66

Certainly," said Frank.

"Now you can set to work on that Teniers as you've carried upstairs; and then I shall see what you're up to, and whether you'll suit me, If you aint got all the paints you want, come

to me.

With this remark, Mr. Burls left Frank; and, pulling off his coat, set to work himself in the front room, a short description of which I gave at the beginning of my last chapter.

Left to himself, Frank looked about him. There was a good light, to the north; but when he stood upright anywhere in the room, his head nearly touched the ceiling.

The prospect from his window was limited almost entirely to tiles and chimney pots.

Pasted to the walls were a number of prints of the most celebrated characters of English history, which-as Frank

rightly guessed-were used in the production of the genuine antique portraits which were founded upon them. Mr. Critchett had left a Queen Elizabeth, in a great starched ruff and jewelled stomacher, in an unfinished state on his easel.

The furniture of his atelier was by no means luxurious. It consisted of a cane-seated chair, with three orthodox legs, and an old mahl-stick for a fourth. A high rush hassock, tied on this chair, led Frank to suppose that his predecessor had been a short man. There were, besides, three easels, a fireplace with a black kettle on the hob, and several canvases-some new, some old-in the corners; and this was all.

Having made this short tour of inspection, Frank settled down at once to his work.

He found it easy;-little patches of paint gone here and there all over the portrait; and he supplied these, carrying out, as well as he could interpret it, the design of the original painter.

Mr. Burls was constantly walking in and out of the room, and looking over his shoulder, and volunteering unnecessary pieces of advice.

At four o'clock he left off " chafing" his pictures, and looked in at Frank, smearing his coarse hands with spirits, to get off the dirt with which they were ditched.

There," said he, "I've done for to-day. I've chafed fifteen pictures: that's fifteen pound earned. I shall charge them a quid a-piece for doing 'em. I don't work for nothing, and I don't know anybody in the picture trade that does."

At six, he came up to Frank again, and looked at his work. "That'll do, my lad-that'll do," and went away again. This cheered Frank, and he worked as long as it was light, and walked home to his lodgings at Islington a happy man. Next day he finished the job, and Mr. Burls passed judgment on his work It was favourable to him; and he was duly installed in the place of Critchett, kicked out.

Frank wrote and told his sister and mother, staying at Llan-y-Fyddloes, that he had got regular employment that suited him very well, and that his prospects were brightening.

He did this to cheer them, and to some extent he believed what he said.

"If," he wrote to Kate, "I can only earn enough to keep myself, and send something every week to you, by the work I am at, and still leave myself time for study and improvement, I am satisfied. Depend upon it, you shall see me in the

catalogue at the Academy before long, No. 00001, 'Interior of a studio,' by-" drawing a very fair likeness of himself by way of signature to his letter.

He said nothing to Kate about the amount of money he could earn at his new work, nor did he tell her what it was exactly. His reason for the first was that he wrote his letter before he had settled terms with Mr. Burls; for the second, because he knew his mother would become hysterical at the bare idea of her son working for a living in any but the most gentlemanlike manner, such as society permits. Now, for his part, Frank saw nothing degrading in any honest labour, and was quite content to put up for a while with such humble occupation.

"Hang it," he thought, "I'd rather do it than sponge on somebody else."

But Kate guessed it was something rather beneath his dignity to do, he was so reserved.

His arrangement with the picture dealer was in these

terms:

Burls: "I'm fair and straight, I am. I should not have got on if I'd done as many chaps do."

Frank: 66 To be sure. I think I am tolerably straightforward, too, Mr. Burls. I hope so, at least."

Burls: "I don't know nothing about you, do I?"

Frank (reddening): "No."

Burls: "Well, I don't want to ask no questions, my lad." The man's familiarity was disgusting. It was a fine lesson in self-command for Frank to make himself stomach it.

"You want work, and I'll give you some. You can work for me instead of old Critchett. I'm fair and straight with you. Some chaps would want you to work six months for nothing."

Frank: "I could not do that."

Burls, continuing: "I don't ask you. You shall have what Critchett had--that's a shillin' an hour; and handsome pay, too, I call it. I like to pay my chaps well. Regular work, too. You may work eight hours a day if you like, and then you'll take eight and forty shillin' a week, you know."

Mr. Burls appealed to his shopman to support his statement that Frank's predecessor often "took eight and forty a week.' The terms seemed fair; though the remuneration for restoring, which required artistic skill, seemed to Frank to bear no just proportion to the money to be got by cleaning-for

Mr. Burls earned fifteen pounds before dinner at that, Frank recollected.

However, he could hardly expect to get more than Critchett had received before him; so he agreed to take a shilling an hour, and work regularly for Mr. Burls.

Burls: "Done, then, and settled. We don't want any character, do we, Jack? Pictures aint easy things to carry out of the shop, are they?"

Frank (very angry): "Sir!"

Burls: 66 No offence. Don't get angry. It was only a hint that we should not trouble you for references to your last employment. Rec'lect what I said about those hands. You've been brought up a gentleman, I dare say, but you're right not to starve your belly to feed your pride. Don't be

me.

I'm straight and fair, I am.

angry with

You'll find me that."

I have now explained how Frank came to be in the top attic of Mr. Burls's house of business. He remained in his situation about three months. While there, he learned a great deal. Mr. Burls took a fancy to him, and soon came to stand a little in awe of him-for he was educated and honest, and, in addition, plainly a gentleman, The dealer was very ignorant, and, from any point of view but that of his own class of traders, very dishonest-that is, he looked upon the public, his customers, as fair game; and would tell any lie, and any sequence of lies, to sell a spurious picture for and at the price of a genuine picture. The morals of commerce, in the hands of the Burlses, find their lowest ebb.

are.

But, to some extent, their customers make them what they If a man who has money to spend on his house will have pictures for his walls, why not prefer a new picture to an old one? Why not an honest print before a dishonest canvas?

But it is always the reverse. He has a hundred pounds to lay out, and he wants ten pictures for the money-bargainsspeculative pictures, with famous names to them, which he can comment on and enlarge upon, and point out the beauties of to his friends, until he actually comes to believe the daub he gave ten guineas for is a Turner; and the dealers can find him hundreds.

Why, the old masters must have painted pictures faster than they could nowadays print them, if a quarter of the things that are sold in their names were their true works. There are probably more pictures ascribed to any one famous old