154 Edward Disbelieved. [CHAP. Ix. 
“You are too stiff—too unbending,” said the doctor. 
“Then, you know very well that you have nobody in Aber- 
deen to confirm your extraordinary statement. You say 
that the whole of this collection is entirely the work of your 
own hands, and that it is your own exclusive. property !” 
“Yes. I bought the game birds; and as regards the 
others, I procured the whole of them myself — preserved 
them and cased them, just as you see them.” 
“And had you to work for your living all that time ?” 
“Yes; and for the living of my family too.” 
“Then you have a wife and a family?” 
“Yes, I have five children.” 
“The devil !” : 
“No, sir; I said children.” 
“Ah yes, I know; I beg your pardon. But do you 
mean to say that you have maintained. your wife and fam- 
ily by working at your trade all the while that you have 
been making this collection ?” 
HY ag? 
“Oh, nonsense! How is it possible that you could have 
done that?” 
“ By never losing a single minute, nor any part of a min- 
ute, that I could by any means improve.” 
“Did you ever hear of any one else who had ever done 
the like before ?” 
“No. But thousands might have done it, and much 
more too.” 
“Well, I don’t believe it. I have never heard of such a 
thing, and I have never read of such a thing !” 
“ But I never thought,” said Edward, “that I was doing 
any thing that any one else might not have done. I was 
quite unaware of the fact that I was doing any thing in 
the least way meritorious. But if I have, as a journeyman 
shoe-maker, done any thing worthy of praise, then I must 
say that there is not a working-man on the face of the earth 
that could not have done much more than I have done; for 
