After questioning the boy a little Mr. Bolton closed the interview by telling him to come and see him on the afternoon of the next day.
"And now comes the cream of the whole thing!" cries Dick excitedly, after having given the foregoing information in a series of short, spasmodic sentences.
"After I had told Mr. Bolton that I most distinctly _should_ like to join the choir, he asked me all the questions imaginable about my education, and, oh, ever so many things that I can't remember now. But to continue (as the books say), I let out that you were all worrying about my schooling having to stop, and directly I said that he quite brightened up, and told me that if I liked he thought he could be of service to me about that. It seems, you see, that he generally gives his chief choir-boys about four pounds a year; but that would not be of very much use to me, he said (I thought to myself it just _would_, though). And so he proposed that in return for my services--my _services_, mind--he would carry on my education with his own boy and the two pupils he has living at the vicarage. 'The more the merrier, my boy,' he said; 'and Mr. Holmes and I can as well tackle _four_ as three youngsters like you.' Mr. St. John is to train my voice, of course; and now, which of you girls can make a surplice? And, oh yes, I forgot, Mr. Bolton is coming to see you about it all to-morrow, mother. There now! don't you think I have done a good day's work? _I_ do!" And up goes the cap to the ceiling once more. "Ah! you little thought," he goes on, suddenly calming down--"you little thought what I meant some time ago when I said I had a plan in my head about something; but, honestly, you know, I didn't expect it would turn out in this stunning fashion. What I intended doing was to offer myself for the choir, you see, because I guessed they paid something, though I didn't know what. And that is the reason I have been going to the practices so much lately, trying every time to screw up my courage to speak to Mr. Bolton. But now, I suppose, you girls and mother will all think the education plan the best, though I must say I think it rather hard on a fellow. But still," he adds magnanimously, "if it takes a load off all your shoulders, of course I shall be very glad."