“I am a common man, and understand next to nothing,” he replied reverently.  “But if your ladyship would give me a day’s work to keep me goin’, I could put up all this money in a little wooden savings bank I have at home, and keep it to spend when sickness or odd age shall, in a manner of speaking, lay their ’ends upon me.  I could smooth that grass beautiful; them young ladies ’ll strain themselves with that heavy roller.  If tennis is the word, I can put up nets fit to catch birds of paradise in.  If the courts is to be chalked out in white, I can draw a line so straight that you could hardly keep yourself from erecting an equilateral triangle on it.  I am honest when well watched, and I can wait at table equal to the Lord Mayor o’ London’s butler.”

“I cannot employ you without a character,” said Miss Wilson, amused by his scrap of Euclid, and wondering where he had picked it up.

“I bear the best of characters, lady.  The reverend rector has known me from a boy.”

“I was speaking to him about you yesterday,” said Miss Wilson, looking hard at him, “and he says you are a perfect stranger to him.”

“Gentlemen is so forgetful,” said Smilash sadly.  “But I alluded to my native rector—­meaning the rector of my native village, Auburn.  ’Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,’ as the gentleman called it.”

“That was not the name you mentioned to Mr. Fairholme.  I do not recollect what name you gave, but it was not Auburn, nor have I ever heard of any such place.”

“Never read of sweet Auburn!”

“Not in any geography or gazetteer.  Do you recollect telling me that you have been in prison?”

“Only six times,” pleaded Smilash, his features working convulsively.  “Don’t bear too hard on a common man.  Only six times, and all through drink.  But I have took the pledge, and kep’ it faithful for eighteen months past.”

Miss Wilson now set down the man as one of those keen, half-witted country fellows, contemptuously styled originals, who unintentionally make themselves popular by flattering the sense of sanity in those whose faculties are better adapted to circumstances.

“You have a bad memory, Mr. Smilash,” she said good-humoredly.  “You never give the same account of yourself twice.”

“I am well aware that I do not express myself with exactability.  Ladies and gentlemen have that power over words that they can always say what they mean, but a common man like me can’t.  Words don’t come natural to him.  He has more thoughts than words, and what words he has don’t fit his thoughts.  Might I take a turn with the roller, and make myself useful about the place until nightfall, for ninepence?”

Miss Wilson, who was expecting more than her usual Saturday visitors, considered the proposition and assented.  “And remember,” she said, “that as you are a stranger here, your character in Lyvern depends upon the use you make of this opportunity.”