His Big Opportunity | Page 8

used to ask where the tin came from, and where the iron and
where the lead, he took to learning of it up so that he could answer me;
and then I came to find that most of our comforts come from
underground, and so I fell to digging. Ah, youngsters, earth is a
wonderful treasure house!"
The clock was done. Old Principle put it carefully by and then mounted
on some wooden steps, and took down a tin saucepan. The boys knew
the shelf well; as though apparently it was just a row of tinware for sale,
many a pot and pan held treasures that geologists would have given a
great deal to possess.
Now when old Principle held out a peculiar shaped stone with loving
pride, Roy and Dudley pressed forward to look at it.
"I know, it's a Roman hammer," shouted out Dudley.
"It's a Saxon jug," suggested Roy.
"It's part of a jaw of a mammoth many thousands of years old, and
there are two teeth in perfect preservation," old Principle said solemnly.
"Where did you find it?"
"Ah, you must come and see! In a cave that I have only just discovered,
and which must originally have been by the side of a river. I'll take you
there to-night if you can get permission to come."
Nothing delighted the boys more than an expedition with old Principle.
They promised to be down at his shop punctually at half-past seven that
evening, and then the conversation drifted into other channels.
"Old Principle, do you think we ought to make opportunities?"
questioned Dudley, presently; "Roy thinks we ought, and I did make
one the other day, but it didn't turn out well."
"Ay, Master Roy is always for making," said the old man with a smile;
"he will try and cram his life with what will come fast enough naturally,

if he only waits."
"But will it?" questioned Roy, flushing up with eagerness; "do you
think it will? I'm longing to do something big and grand and good; I
mayn't live to grow up you know, and I'm sure we're meant to do
something when we're boys."
"We're trying to do good to all men as we have opportunity," said
Dudley, gravely.
"Ay, stick to that, boys, and you'll succeed. There's none too small to be
true philanthropists."
"What is a philanthropist?" asked Roy.
"A man who benefits his fellow creatures. 'Tis a good principle to keep
in mind."
"But it's difficult for boys to do grown-up people good. They always do
boys good."
"Now look here, Master Roy. I've lived and learned where you haven't,
and I try and pass my principles on to you. That's how I do you good.
You come to me and take what I give you and seeing you act out the
advice I offers you does me good. You do me good too, every time you
comes to see me; it's cheery to hear and see you."
"But that's very tame for us," said Roy, a little scornfully.
"Oh, well, if your own likes must come into the question, it's a different
story! I didn't know it mattered about our feelings as long as the good is
done! 'Tis a bad principle to try to please others only when it pleases
ourselves."
Roy looked a little ashamed of himself. He said no more on the subject,
and shortly after he and Dudley ran home to tea.
They were very disappointed when their aunt refused to let them go out
again that evening.

"It is too damp a night for Jonathan to be wandering through wet grass
and bog. You can go, David, if you like, but he must wait for another
opportunity."
"I shan't go without Roy," said Dudley, sturdily.
"We'll come and make a cave in the attic," suggested Roy, trying to be
cheerful.
And for the rest of that evening they were absorbed in making a great
dust and racket amongst lumber boxes far away from their
grandmother's hearing.

IV
AN AWKWARD VISIT
"And how do you know a river has been here?"
"By the soil and by the relics I have found. Look at this fossil. Do you
see the outline of the fish? Fish don't live on dry ground."
"There might have been a fishman passing by who dropped one out of
his cart."
Old Principle laughed at Dudley's sceptical notion, and went on
shovelling out earth with great alacrity. It was Saturday afternoon: old
Principle had shut up his shop and taken the boys up to the hills
surrounding the little village, where in a ravine between two
precipitous crags, in the midst of a green bower of ferns and moss, he
was hard at work excavating an old cave that had been buried for many