"Silence, you!" says Gentleman Jan, who generally feels a mission to teach the rest of the quay good manners, "'Tis the gentleman's pleasure to settle who he'll dra' off, and not wer'n."

To which abnormal possessive pronoun, Claude rejoined,—

"Not a bit! whatever you like. I could not have a better figure for the centre. I'll begin again."

"Oh, do come and sit among the children, Grace!" says Valencia.

"No, thank your ladyship."

Valencia began urging her; and many a voice round, old as well as young, backed the entreaty.

"Excuse me, my lady," and she slipped into the crowd; but as she went she spoke low, but clear enough to be heard by all: "No: it will be time enough to flatter me, and ask for my picture, when you do what I tell you—what God tells you!"

"What's that, then, Grace dear?"

"You know! I've asked you to save your own lives from cholera, and you have not the common sense to do it. Let me go home and pray for you!"

There was an awkward silence among the men, till some fellow said,—

"She'm gone mad after that doctor, I think, with his muck-hunting notions."

And Grace went home, to await the hour of afternoon school.

"What a face!" said Mellot.

"Is it not? Come and see her in her school, when the children go in at two o'clock. Ah! there are Scoutbush and St. Père."

"We are going to the school, my lord. Don't you think that, as patron of things in general here, it would look well if you walked in, and signified your full approbation of what you know nothing about?"

"So much so, that I was just on my way there with Campbell. But I must just speak to that lime-burning fellow. He wants a new lease of the kiln, and I suppose he must have it. At least, here he comes, running at me open-mouthed, and as dry as his own waistband. It makes one thirsty to look at him. I'll catch you up in five minutes!"

So the three went off to the school.

* * * * *

Grace was telling, in her own sweet way, that charming story of the Three Trouts, which, by the by, has been lately pirated (as many things are) by a religious author, whose book differs sufficiently from the liberal and wholesome morality of the true author of the tale.

"What a beautiful story, Grace!" said Valencia. "You will surpass Hans Anderssen some day."

Grace blushed, and was silent a moment.

"It is not my own, my lady."

"Not your own? I should have thought that no one but you and Anderssen could have made such an ending to it."

Grace gave her one of those beseeching, half-reproachful looks, with which she always answered praise; and then,—"Would you like to hear the children repeat a hymn, my lady?"

"No. I want to know where that story came from."

Grace blushed, and stammered.

"I know where," said Campbell. "You need not be ashamed of having read the book, Miss Harvey. I doubt not that you took all the good from it, and none of the harm, if harm there be."

Grace looked at him; at once surprised and relieved.

"It was a foolish romance-book, sir, as you seem to know. It was the only one which I ever read, except Hans Anderssen's,—which are not romances, after all. But the beginning was so full of God's truth, sir, —romance though it was,—and gave me such precious new light about educating children, that I was led on unawares. I hope I was not wrong."

"This schoolroom proves that you were not," said Campbell. "'To the pure, all things are pure.'"

"What is this mysterious book? I must know!" said Valencia.

"A very noble romance, which I made Mellot read once, containing the ideal education of an English nobleman, in the middle of the last century."

"The Fool of Quality?" said Mellot. "Of course! I thought I had heard the story before. What a well-written book it is, too, in spite of all extravagance and prolixity. And how wonderfully ahead of his generation the man who wrote it, in politics as well as in religion!"

"I must read it," said Valencia. "You must lend it me, Saint Père."

"Not yet, I think."

"Why?" whispered she, pouting. "I suppose I am not as pure as Grace Harvey?"

"She has the children to educate, who are in daily contact with coarse sins, of which you know nothing—of which she cannot help knowing. It was written in an age when the morals of our class (more shame to us) were on the same level with the morals of her class now. Let it alone. I often have fancied I should edit a corrected edition of it. When I do, you shall read that."

"Now, Miss Harvey," said Mellot, who had never taken his eyes off her face, "I want to turn schoolmaster, and give your children a drawing lesson. Get your slates, all of you!"

And taking possession of the black board and a piece of chalk, Claude began sketching them imps and angels, dogs and horses, till the school rang with shrieks of delight.

"Now," said he, wiping the board, "I'll draw something, and you shall copy it."

And, without taking off his hand, he drew a single line; and a profile head sprang up, as if by magic, under his firm, unerring touch.

"Somebody?" "A lady!" "No, 'taint; 'tis schoolmistress!"

"You can't copy that; I'll draw you another face." And he sketched a full face on the board.

"That's my lady." "No, it's schoolmistress again!" "No it's not!"

"Not quite sure, my dears?" said Claude, half to himself. "Then here!" and wiping the board once more, he drew a three-quarters face, which elicited a shout of approbation.

"That's schoolmistress, her very self!"

"Then you cannot do anything better than try and draw it. I'll show you how." And going over the lines again, one by one, the crafty Claude pretended to be giving a drawing lesson, while he was really studying every feature of his model.

"If you please, my lady," whispered Grace to Valencia; "I wish the gentleman would not."

"Why not?"

"Oh, madam, I do not judge any one else: but why should this poor perishing flesh be put into a picture? We wear it but for a little while, and are blessed when we are rid of its burden. Why wish to keep a copy of what we long to be delivered from?"

"It will please the children, Grace," said Valencia, puzzled. "See how they are all trying to copy it, from love of you."

"Who am I? I want them to do things from love of God. No, madam, I was pained (and no offence to you) when I was asked to have my likeness taken on the quay. There's no sin in it, of course: but let those who are going away to sea, and have friends at home, have their pictures taken: not one who wishes to leave behind her no likeness of her own, only Christ's likeness in these children; and to paint Him to other people, not to be painted herself. Do ask him to rub it out, my lady!"

"Why, Grace, we were all just wishing to have a likeness of you. Every one has their picture taken for a remembrance."

"The saints and martyrs never had theirs, as far as I ever heard, and yet they are not forgotten yet. I know it is the way of great people like you. I saw your picture once, in a book Miss Heale had; and did not wonder, when I saw it, that people wished to remember such a face as yours: and since I have seen you, I wonder still less."

"My picture? where?"

"In a book—'The Book of Beauty,' I believe they called it."

"My dear Grace," said Valencia, laughing and blushing, "if you ever looked in your glass, you must know that you are quite as worthy of a place in 'The Book of Beauty' as I am."

Grace shook her head with a serious smile. "Every one in their place, madam. I cannot help knowing that God has given me a gift: but why, I cannot tell. Certainly not for the same purpose as He gave it to you for,—a simple country girl like me. If He have any use for it, He will use it, as He does all His creatures, without my help. At all events it will not last long; a few years more, perhaps a few months, and it will be food for worms; and then people will care as little about my looks as I care now. I wish, my lady, you would stop the gentleman!"

"Mr. Mellot, draw the children something simpler, please;—a dog or a cat." And she gave Claude a look which he obeyed.

Valencia felt in a more solemn mood than usual as she walked home that day.

"Well," said Claude, "I have here every line and shade, and she cannot escape me. I'll go on board and paint her right off from memory, while it is fresh. Why, here come Scoutbush and the Major."

"Miss Harvey," said Scoutbush, trying, as he said to Campbell, "to look as grand as a sheep-dog among a pack of fox-hounds, and very thankful all the while he had no tail to be bitten off"—"Miss Harvey, I—we— have heard a great deal in praise of your school; and so I thought I should like to come and see it."

"Would your lordship like to examine the children?" says Grace, curtseying to the ground.

"No—thanks—that is—I have no doubt you teach them all that's right, and we are exceedingly gratified with the way in which you conduct the school.—I say Val," cried Scoutbush, who could support the part of patron no longer, "what pretty little ducks they are, I wish I had a dozen of them! Come you here!" and down he sat on a bench, and gathered a group round him.

"Now, are you all good children? I'm sure you look so!" said he, looking round into the bright pure faces, fresh from Leaven, and feeling himself the nearer heaven as he did so. "Ah! I see Mr. Mellot's been drawing you pictures. He's a clever man, a wonderful man, isn't he? I can't draw you pictures, nor tell you stories, like your schoolmistress. What shall I do?"

"Sing to them, Fred!" said Valencia.

And he began warbling a funny song, with a child on each knee, and his arms round three or four more, while the little faces looked up into his, half awe-struck at the presence of a live lord, half longing to laugh, but not sure whether it would be right.

Valencia and Campbell stood close together, exchanging looks.

"Dear fellow!" whispered she, "so simple and good when he is himself!

And he must go to that dreadful war!"

"Never mind. Perhaps by this very act he is earning permission to come back again, a wiser and a more useful man."

"How then?"

"Is he not making friends with angels who always behold our Father's face? At least he is showing capabilities of good, which God gave; and which therefore God will never waste."

"Now, shall I sing you another song?"

"Oh yes, please!" rose from a dozen little mouths.

"You must not be troublesome to his lordship," says Grace.

"Oh no, I like it. I'll sing them one more song, and then—I want to speak to you, Miss Harvey."

Grace curtsied, blushed, and shook all over. What could Lord Scoutbush want to say to her?

That indeed was not very easy to discover at first; for Scoutbush felt so strongly the oddity of taking a pretty young woman into his counsel on a question of sanitary reform, that he felt mightily inclined to laugh, and began beating about the bush, in a sufficiently confused fashion.

"Well, Miss Harvey, I am exceedingly pleased with—with what I have seen of the school—that is, what my sister tells, and the clergyman—"

"The clergyman?" thought Grace, surprised, as she well might be, at what was entirely an impromptu invention of his lordship's.

"And—and—there is ten pounds toward the school, and—and, I will give an annual subscription the same amount."

"Mr. Headley receives the subscriptions, my lord," said Grace, drawing back from the proffered note.

"Of course," quoth Scoutbush, trusting again to an impromptu: "but this is for yourself—a small mark of our sense of your—your usefulness."

If any one has expected that Grace is about to conduct herself, during this interview, in any wise like a prophetess, tragedy queen, or other exalted personage; to stand upon her native independence, and scorning the bounty of an aristocrat, to read the said aristocrat a lecture on his duties and responsibilities, as landlord of Aberalva town; then will that person be altogether disappointed. It would have looked very well, doubtless: but it would have been equally untrue to Grace's womanhood, and to her notions of Christianity. Whether all men were or were not equal in the sight of Heaven, was a notion which, had never crossed her mind. She knew that they would all be equal in heaven, and that was enough for her. Meanwhile, she found lords and ladies on earth, and seeing no open sin in the fact of their being richer and more powerful than she was, she supposed that God had put them where they were; and she accepted them simply as facts of His kingdom. Of course they had their duties, as every one has: but what they were she did not know, or care to know. To their own master they stood or fell; her business was with her own duties, and with her own class, whose good and evil she understood by practical experience. So when a live lord made his appearance in her school, she looked at him with vague wonder and admiration, as a being out of some other planet, for whom she had no gauge or measure: she only believed that he had vast powers of doing good unknown to her; and was delighted by seeing him condescend to play with her children. The truth may be degrading, but it must be told. People, of course, who know the hollowness of the world, and the vanity of human wealth and honour, and are accustomed to live with lords and ladies, see through all that, just as clearly as any American republican does; and care no more about walking down Pall-Mall with the Marquis of Carabas, who can get them a place or a living, than with Mr. Two-shoes, who can only borrow ten pounds of them; but Grace was a poor simple West-country girl; and as such we must excuse her, if, curtseying to the very ground, with tears of gratitude in her eyes, she took the ten-pound note, saying to herself, "Thank the Good Lord! This will just pay mother's account at the mill."

Likewise we must excuse her if she trembled a little, being a young woman—though being also a lady, she lost no jot of self-possession— when his lordship went on in as important a tone as he could—

"And—and I hear, Miss Harvey, that you have a great influence over these children's parents."

"I am afraid some one has misinformed your lordship," said Grace, in a low voice.

"Ah!" quoth Scoutbush, in a tone meant to be reassuring; "it is quite proper in you to say so. What eyes she has! and what hair! and what hands, too!" (This was, of course, spoken mentally.) "But we know better; and we want you to speak to them, whenever you can, about keeping their houses clean, and all that, in case the cholera should come." And Scoutbush stopped. It was a quaint errand enough; and besides, as he told Mellot frankly, "I could think of nothing but those wonderful eyes of hers, and how like they were to La Signora's."

Grace had been looking at the ground all the while. Now she threw upon him one of her sudden, startled looks, and answered slowly, as her eyes dropped again:

"I have, my lord; but they will not listen to me."

"Won't listen to you? Then to whom will they listen?"

"To God, when He speaks Himself," said she, still looking on the ground. Scoutbush winced uneasily. He was not accustomed to solemn words, spoken so solemnly.

"Do you hear this, Campbell? Miss Harvey has been talking to these people already, and they won't hear her."

"Miss Harvey, I dare say, is not astonished at that. It is the usual fate of those who try to put a little common sense into their fellow-men."

"Well, and I shall, at all events, go off and give them my mind on the matter; though I suppose (with a glance at Grace) I can't expect to be heard where Miss Harvey has not been."

"Oh, my lord," cried Grace, "if you would but speak—" And there she stopped; for was it her place to tell him his duty? No doubt he had wiser people than her to counsel him.

But the moment the party left the school, Grace dropped into her chair; her head fell on the table, and she burst into an agony of weeping, which brought the whole school round her.

"Oh, my darlings! my darlings!" cried she at last, looking up, and clasping them to her by twos and threes; "Is there no way of saving you? No way! Then we must make the more haste to be good, and be all ready when Jesus comes to take us." And shaking off her passion with one strong effort, she began teaching those children as she had never taught them before, with a voice, a look, as of Stephen himself when he saw the heavens opened.

For that burst of weeping was the one single overflow of long pent passion, disappointment, and shame.

She had tried, indeed. Ever since Tom's conversation and Frank's sermon had poured in a flood of new light on the meaning of epidemics, and bodily misery, and death itself, she had been working as only she could work; exhorting, explaining, coaxing, warning, entreating with tears, offering to perform with her own hands the most sickening offices; to become, if no one else would, the common scavenger of the town. There was no depth to which, in her noble enthusiasm, she would not have gone down. And behold, it had been utterly in vain! Ah! the bitter disappointment of finding her influence fail her utterly, the first time that it was required for a great practical work! They would let her talk to them about their souls, then!—They would even amend a few sins here and there, of which they had been all along as well aware as she. But to be convinced of a new sin; to have their laziness, pride, covetousness, touched; that, she found, was what they would not bear; and where she had expected, if not thanks, at least a fair hearing, she had been met with peevishness, ridicule, even anger and insult.

Her mother had turned against her. "Why would she go getting a bad name from every one, and driving away customers?" The preachers, who were (as is too common in West-country villages) narrow, ignorant, and somewhat unscrupulous men, turned against her. They had considered the cholera, if it was to come, as so much spiritual capital for themselves; an occasion which they could "improve" into a sensation, perhaps a "revival;" and to explain it upon mere physical causes was to rob them of their harvest. Coarse viragos went even farther still, and dared to ask her "whether it was the curate or the doctor she was setting her cap at: for she never had anything in her mouth now but what they had said?" And those words went through her heart like a sword. Was she disinterested? Was not love for Thurnall, the wish to please him, mingling with all her earnestness? And again, was not self-love mingling with it? and mingling, too, with the disappointment, even indignation, which she felt at having failed? Ah—what hitherto hidden spots of self-conceit, vanity, pharisaic pride, that bitter trial laid bare, or seemed to lay, till she learned to thank her unseen Guide even for it!

Perhaps she had more reason to be thankful for her humiliation than she could suspect, with her narrow knowledge of the world. Perhaps that sudden downfall of her fancied queenship was needed, to shut her out, once and for all, from that downward path of spiritual intoxication, followed by spiritual knavery, which, as has been hinted, was but too easy for her.

But meanwhile the whole thing was but a fresh misery. To bear the burden of Cassandra day and night, seeing in fancy—which yet was truth—the black shadow of death hanging over that doomed place; to dream of whom it might sweep off;—perhaps, worst of all, her mother, unconfessed and impenitent!

Too dreadful! And dreadful, too, the private troubles which were thickening fast; and which seemed, instead of drawing her mother to her side, to estrange her more and more, for some mysterious reason. Her mother was heavily in debt. This ten pounds of Lord Scoutbush's would certainly clear off the miller's bill. Her scanty quarter's salary, which was just due, would clear off a little more. But there was a long-standing account of the wholesale grocer's for five-and-twenty pounds, for which Mrs. Harvey had given a two months' bill. That bill would become due early in September: and how to meet it, neither mother nor daughter knew; it lay like a black plague-spot on the future, only surpassed in horror by the cholera itself.

It might have been three or four days after, that Claude, lounging after breakfast on deck, was hailed from a dingy, which contained Captain Willis and Gentleman Jan.

"Might we take the liberty of coming aboard to speak with your honour?"

"By all means!" and up the side they came; their faces evidently big with some great purpose, and each desirous that the other should begin.

"You speak, Captain," says Jan, "you'm oldest;" and then he began himself. "If you please, sir, we'm come on a sort of deputation—Why don't you tell the gentleman, Captain?" Willis seemed either doubtful of the success of his deputation, or not over desirous thereof; for, after trying to put John Beer forward as spokesman, he began:—

"I'm sorry to trouble you, sir, but these young men will have it so—and no shame to them—on a matter which I think will come to nothing. But the truth is, they have heard that you are a great painter, and they have taken it into their heads to ask you to paint a picture for them."

"Not to ask you a favour, sir, mind!" interrupted Jan; "we'd scorn to be so forward; we'll subscribe and pay for it, in course, any price in reason. There's forty and more promised already."

"You must tell me, first, what the picture is to be about," said Claude, puzzled and amused.

"Why didn't you tell the gentleman, Captain?"

"Because I think it is no use; and I told them all so from the first. The truth is, sir, they want a picture of my—of our schoolmistress, to hang up in the school or somewhere—"

"That's it, dra'ed out all natural, in paints, and her bonnet, and her shawl, and all, just like life; we was a going to ax you to do one of they garrytypes; but she would have'n noo price; besides tan't cheerful looking they sort, with your leave; too much blackamoor wise, you see, and over thick about the nozzes, most times, to my liking; so we'll pay you and welcome, all you ask."

"Too much blackamoor wise, indeed!" said Claude, amused. "And how much do you think I should ask?"

No answer.

"We'll settle that presently. Come down into the cabin with me."

"Why, sir, we couldn't make so hold. His lordship—"

"Oh, his lordship's on shore, and I am skipper for the time; and if not, he'd be delighted to see two good seamen here. So come along."

And down they went.

"Bowie, bring these gentlemen some sherry!" cried Claude, turning over his portfolio. "Now then, my worthy friends, is that the sort of thing you want?"

And he spread on the table a water-colour sketch of Grace.

The two worthies gazed in silent delight, and then looked at each other, and then at Claude, and then at the picture.

"Why, sir," said Willis; "I couldn't have believed it! You've got the very smile of her, and the sadness of her too, as if you'd known her a hundred year!"

"'Tis beautiful!" sighed Jan, half to himself. Poor fellow, he had cherished, perhaps, hopes of winning Grace after all.

"Well, will that suit you?"

"Why, sir, make so bold:—but what we thought on was to have her drawn from head to foot, and a child standing by her like, holding to her hand, for a token as she was schoolmistress; and the pier behind, maybe, to signify as she was our maid, and belonged to Aberalva."

"A capital thought! Upon my word, you're men of taste here in the West; but what do you think I should charge for such a picture as that?"

"Name your price, sir," said Jan, who was in high good humour at Claude's approbation.

"Two hundred guineas?"

Jan gave a long whistle.

"I told you so, Captain Beer," said Willis, "or ever we got into the boat."

"Now," said Claude, laughing, "I've two prices, ore's two hundred, and the other is just nothing; and if you won't agree to the one, you must take the other."

"But we wants to pay, we'd take it an honour to pay, if we could afford it."

"Then wait till next Christmas."

"Christmas?"

"My good friend, pictures are not painted in a day. Next Christmas, if I live, I'll send you what you shall not be ashamed of, or she either, and do you club your money and put it into a handsome gold frame."

"But, sir," said Willis, "this will give you a sight of trouble, and all for our fancy."

"I like it, and I like you! You're fine fellows, who know a noble creature when God sends her to you; and I should be ashamed to ask a farthing of your money. There, no more words!"

"Well, you are a gentleman, sir!" said Gentleman Jan.

"And so are you," said Claude. "Now I'll show you some more sketches."

"I should like to know, sir," asked Willis, "how you got at that likeness. She would not hear of the thing, and that's why I had no liking to come troubling you about nothing."

Claude told them, and Jan laughed heartily, while Willis said,—

"Do you know, sir, that's a relief to my mind. There is no sin in being drawn, of course; but I didn't like to think my maid had changed her mind, when once she'd made it up."

So the deputation retired in high glee, after Willis had entreated Claude and Beer to keep the thing a secret from Grace.

It befell that Claude, knowing no reason why he should not tell Frank Headley, told him the whole story, as a proof of the chivalry of his parishioners, in which he would take delight.

Frank smiled, but said little; his opinion of Grace was altering fast. A circumstance which occurred a few days after altered it still more.

Scoutbush had gone forth, as he threatened, and exploded in every direction, with such effect as was to be supposed. Everybody promised his lordship to do everything. But when his lordship's back was turned, everybody did just nothing. They knew very well that he could not make them do anything; and what was more, in some of the very worst cases, the evil was past remedy now, and better left alone. For the drought went on pitiless. A copper sun, a sea of glass, a brown easterly blight, day after day, while Thurnall looked grimly aloft and mystified the sailors with—

"Fine weather for the Flying Dutchman, this!"

"Coffins sail fastest in a calm."

"You'd best all out to the quay-head, and whistle for a wind: it would be an ill one that would blow nobody good just now!"

But the wind came not, nor the rain; and the cholera crept nearer and nearer: while the hearts of all in Aberalva were hardened, and out of very spite against the agitators, they did less than they would have done otherwise. Even the inhabitants of the half-a-dozen cottages, which Scoutbush, finding that they were in his own hands, whitewashed by main force, filled the town with lamentations over his lordship's tyranny. True—their pig-styes were either under their front windows; or within two feet of the wall: but to pull down a poor man's pig-stye!—they might ever so well be Rooshian slaves!—and all the town was on their side; for pigs were the normal inhabitants of Aberalva back-yards.

Tardrew's wrath, of course, knew no bounds; and meeting Thurnall standing at Willis's door, with Frank and Mellot, he fell upon him open-mouthed.

"Well, sir! I've a crow to pick with you."

"Pick away!" quoth Tom.

"What business have you meddling between his lordship and me?"

"That is my concern," quoth Tom, who evidently was not disinclined to quarrel. "I am not here to give an account to you of what I choose to do."

"I'll tell you what, sir; ever since you've been in this parish you've been meddling, you and Mr. Headley too,—I'll say it to your faces,– I'll speak the truth to any man, gentle or simple; and that ain't enough for you, but you must come over that poor half-crazed girl, to set her plaguing honest people, with telling 'em they'll all be dead in a month, till nobody can eat their suppers in peace: and that again ain't enough for you, but you must go to my lord with your—"

"Hold hard!" quoth Tom. "Don't start two hares at once. Let's hear that about Miss Harvey again!"

"Miss Harvey? Why, you should know better than I."

"Let's hear what you know."

"Why, ever since that night Trebooze caught you and her together—"

"Stop!" said Tom, "that's a lie."

"Everybody says so."

"Then everybody lies, that's all; and you may say I said so, and take care you don't say it again yourself. But what ever since that night?"

"Why, I suppose you come over the poor thing somehow, as you seem minded to do over every one as you can. But she's been running up and down the town ever since, preaching to 'em about windilation, and drains, and smells, and cholera, and its being a judgment of the Lord against dirt, till she's frightened all the women so, that many's the man as has had to forbid her his house.—But you know that as well as I."

"I never heard a word of it before: but now I have, I'll give you my opinion on it. That she is a noble, sensible girl, and that you are all a set of fools who are not worthy of her; and that the greatest fool of the whole is you, Mr. Tardrew. And when the cholera comes, it will serve you exactly right if you are the first man carried off by it. Now, sir, you have given me your mind, and I have given you mine, and I do not wish to hear anything more of you. Good morning!"

"You hold your head mighty high, to be sure, since you've had the run of his lordship's yacht."

"If you are impertinent, sir, you will repent it. I shall take care to inform his lordship of this conversation."

"My dear Thurnall," said Headley, as Tardrew withdrew, muttering curses, "the old fellow is certainly right on one point."

"What then?"

"That you have wonderfully changed your tone. Who was to eat any amount of dirt, if he could but save his influence thereby?"

"I have altered my plans. I shan't stay here long: I shall just see this cholera over, and then vanish."

"No?"

"Yes. I cannot sit here quietly, listening to the war-news. It makes me mad to be up and doing. I must eastward-ho, and see if trumps will not turn up for me at last. Why, I know the whole country, half-a-dozen of the languages,—oh, if I could get some secret-service work! Go I must. At worst I can turn my hand to doctoring Bashi-bazouks."