covered his expenses and was able even to put away a little money for future needs.  Encouraged by this small triumph, the unwearied naturalist set to work during the next year, and added several new attractions to his little show.  At the succeeding fair he again exhibited, and made still more money out of his speculation.  Unhappily, the petty success thus secured led him to hope he might do even better by moving his collection to Aberdeen.

To Aberdeen, accordingly, Edward went.  He took a shop in the great gay thoroughfare of that cold northern city—­Union Street—­and prepared to receive the world at large, and to get the money for the longed-for books and the much-desired microscope.  Now, Aberdeen is a big, busy, bustling town; it has plenty of amusements and recreations; it has two colleges and many learned men of its own; and the people did not care to come and see the working shoemaker’s poor small collection.  If he had been a president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, now—­some learned knight or baronet come down by special train from London—­ the Aberdeen doctors and professors might have rushed to hear his address; or if he had been a famous music-hall singer or an imitation negro minstrel, the public at large might have flocked to be amused and degraded by his parrot-like buffoonery; but as he was only a working shoemaker from Banff, with a heaven-born instinct for watching and discovering all the strange beasts and birds of Scotland, and the ways and thoughts of them, why, of course, respectable Aberdeen, high or low, would have nothing in particular to say to him.  Day after day went by, and hardly anybody came, till at last poor Edward’s heart sank terribly within him.  Even the few who did come were loth to believe that a working shoemaker could ever have gathered together such a large collection by his own exertions.

“Do you mean to say,” said one of the Aberdeen physicians to Edward, “that you’ve maintained your wife and family by working at your trade, all the while that you’ve been making this collection?”

“Yes, I do,” Edward answered.

“Oh, nonsense!” the doctor said.  “How is it possible you could have done that?”

“By never losing a single minute or part of a minute,” was the brave reply, “that I could by any means improve.”

It is wonderful indeed that when once Edward had begun to attract anybody’s attention at all, he and his exhibition should ever have been allowed to pass so unnoticed in a great, rich, learned city like Aberdeen.  But it only shows how very hard it is for unassuming merit to push its way; for the Aberdeen people still went unheeding past the shop in Union Street, till Edward at last began to fear and tremble as to how he should ever meet the expenses of the exhibition.  After the show had been open four weeks, one black Friday came when Edward never took a penny the whole day.  As he sat there alone and despondent in