74 LTistory of Gutta-Percha Willie,
part of the ruins where he kept odds and ends of
things that might some day come in useful.

Mr Macmichael was so devoted to his profession
that he desired nothing better for Willie than that
he too should be a medical man, and he was more
than pleased to find how well Willie’s hands were
able to carry out his contrivances; for he judged
it impossible for a country doctor to have too much
mechanical faculty. The exercise of such a skill
alone might secure the instant relief of a patient,
and be the saving of him. But, more than this, he
believed that nothing tended so much to develop —
common sense—the most precious of faculties—as
the doing of things with the hands, Hence he not
only encouraged Willie in everything he under-
took, but, considering the five hours of school
quite sufficient for study of that sort, requested
the master not to give him any lessons to do at
home. So Willie worked hard during school, and
after it had plenty of time to spend in carpenter-
ing, so that he soon came to use all the common
bench-tools with ease, and Spelman was proud of
his apprentice, as he called him—so much so, that
the burden of his debt grew much lighter upon his
shoulders,

But Willie did not forget his older friend, Hector
Macallaster. Every half-holiday he read to him
for a couple of hours, chiefly, for some time, from
Dick’s Astronomy. Neither of them understood