“I would—provided I found no injury
beyond the scope of my experience.”
Richard spoke in book-fashion: he was speaking
about books, and to a social superior! he was not
really pompous.
“Well, if my father should come to see the thing
as I do, I will let you know. Then will be the
time for a definite understanding!”
“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.”
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, to his grandson’s
surprise, declared himself in favour of his working
at the Mortgrange library. But the idea tickled
his fancy so much, that Richard wondered at the oddity
of his grandfather’s behaviour.
ALICE.
Soon after his visit to Mortgrange, the young bookbinder
went home, recalled at last by his parents. John
Tuke was shocked with the hardness and blackness of
his hands, and called his wife’s attention to
them. She, however, perhaps from nearer alliance
with the smithy, professed to regard their condition
as by no means a serious matter. She could not,
nevertheless, quite conceal her regret, for she was
proud of her boy’s hands.
Richard supposed of course that his father’s
annoyance came only from the fear that his touch would
be no longer sufficiently delicate for certain parts
of his work; and certainly, when he looked at them,
he thought the points of his fingers were broader
than before, and was a little anxious lest they should
have lost something of their cunning. He did not
know that mechanical faculty, for fine work as well
as rough, goes in general with square-pointed fingers.
Delicately tapered fingers, whatever they may indicate
in the way of artistic invention, are not the fingers
of the painter or the sculptor. The finest fingers
of the tapering kind I have ever seen, were those
of a distinguished chemist of the last generation.
Eager to satisfy both his father and himself, that
the hands of the bookmender had not degenerated more
than his skill could counteract, Richard selected,
from a few that were waiting his return, the book
worthiest of his labour, set to work, and by a thorough
success quickly effected his purpose.
He was now, however, anxious, before doing anything
else, to learn all that was known for the restoration
and repair of the insides of books. In this an
old-bookseller, a friend of his father, was able to
give him no little help, putting him up to wrinkles
not a few. Richard was surprised to see how,
with a penknife, on a bit of glass, he would pare the
edge of a scrap of paper to half the thickness, in
order to place two such edges together, and join them
