“A bear-skin.”

“Well, suppose, by way of a beginning, I were to introduce you to a fine live bear, with claws and tusks to match, ready to spring on you, having as much right to your skin as you have to his—­now, were I to say to you, I want that animal’s skin, to make a soft couch similar to the one you see yonder, would you call that work?”

“Certainly, Mr. Becker.”

“Very good, then; it is in the midst of such labors that we pass our lives.  Before we fell comfortably asleep on feather beds, those formidable bones which you see in our museum were flying in the air; the cup which I now hold in my hand was a portion of the clay on which you sit; the canoe with which you ran away the other day was a live seal; the hats that we wear, were running about the fields in the form of angola rabbits.  So with everything you see about you; for fifteen years, excepting the Sabbath, which is our day of rest and recreation as well as prayer, we have never relapsed from labor, and you are at liberty to adopt a similar course, if you feel so disposed.”

“No want of variety,” said Jack; “if you do not like the saw-pit, you can have the tannery.”

“Neither are very much in my line,” replied Willis.

“What then do you say to pottery?”

“I have broken a good deal in my day.”

“Yes, but there is a difference between breaking it and making it.”

“What appears most needful,” remarked Fritz, “is, three or four acres of fresh land, to double our agricultural produce.”

“Is land dear in these parts?” inquired Mrs. Wolston, smiling.

“It is not to be had for nothing, madam; there is the trouble of selecting it.”

“And the labor of rendering it productive,” added Ernest.

“But how do you manage for a lawyer to convey it?”

“I was advising Ernest to adopt that profession,” said Mrs. Becker; “wills and contracts would be in harmony with his studious temperament.”

“At present, the question before us,” said Becker, “is the allotment of quarters; in the meantime, Mr. and Mrs. Wolston, with the young ladies, will continue to occupy our room.”

“No, no,” said Wolston “that would be downright expropriation.”

“In that case the matter comes within the sphere of our lawyer, and I therefore request his advice.”

To this Ernest replied, by slowly examining his pockets; after this operation was deliberately performed, he said, in a nisi prius tone, “That he had forgotten his spectacles, and consequently that it was impossible for him to look into the case in the way its importance demanded, otherwise he was quite of the same opinion as his learned brother—­his father, he meant.”

“And what if we refuse?” said Mrs. Wolston.

“If you refuse, Mrs. Wolston, there is only one other course to adopt.”

“And what is that, Master Frank?”

“Why, simply this,” and rising, he cried out lustily, “John, call Mrs. Wolston’s carriage.”