Again Wigmore looked grateful, but even yet the burden was not off his mind.

‘I know,’ he resumed presently, turning his hat round and round, ’that it sounds a strange thing to say, but—­well, sir, I’ve always done my best to live as a religious man.’

‘Of that I have no doubt whatever, Mr. Wigmore.’

’Well, then, sir, what I should like to ask you is this.  Do you think, if I gave up the shop and worked very hard at my studies—­with help, of course, with help,—­do you think, Mr. Starkey, that I could hope to get on?’

He was red as a peony; his voice choked.

‘You mean,’ put in Topham, he, too, becoming excited, ’to become a really well-educated man?’

’Yes, sir, yes.  But more than that.  I want, Mr. Starkey, to make myself—­something—­so that my daughters and my sons-in-law would never feel ashamed of me—­so that their children won’t be afraid to talk of their grandfather.  I know it’s a very bold thought, sir, but if I could—­’

‘Speak, Mr. Wigmore,’ cried Topham, quivering with curiosity, ’speak more plainly.  What do you wish to become?  With competent help—­of course, with competent help—­anything is possible.’

‘Really?’ exclaimed the other.  ’You mean that, Mr. Starkey?  Then, sir’—­he leaned forward, blushing, trembling, gasping—­’could I get to be—­a curate?’

Topham fell back into his chair.  For two or three minutes he was mute with astonishment; then the very soul of him sang jubilee.

‘My dear Mr. Wigmore,’ he began, restraining himself to an impressive gravity.  ’I should be the last man to speak lightly of the profession of a clergyman or to urge any one to enter the Church whom I thought unfitted for the sacred office.  But in your case, my good sir, there can be no such misgiving.  I entertain no doubt whatever of your fitness—­your moral fitness, and I will go so far as to say that with competent aid you might, in no very long time, be prepared for the necessary examination.’

The listener laughed with delight.  He began to talk rapidly, all diffidence subdued.  He told how the idea had first come to him, how he had brooded upon it, how he had worked at elementary lesson-books, very secretly—­then how the sight of Starkey’s advertisement had inspired him with hope.

’Just to get to be a curate—­that’s all.  I should never be worthy of being a vicar or a rector.  I don’t look so high as that, Mr. Starkey.  But a curate is a clergyman, and for my daughters to be able to say their father is in the Church—­that would be a good thing, sir, a good thing!’

He slapped his knee, and again laughed with joy.  Meanwhile Topham seemed to have become pensive, his head was on his hand.

‘Oh,’ he murmured at length, ’if I had time to work seriously with you, several hours a day.’

Wigmore looked at him, and let his eyes fall:  ’You are, of course, very busy, Mr. Starkey!’