The Secretary took that opportunity of touching on the practical question of Mr. Sloppy’s capabilities. He would have made a wonderful cabinetmaker, said Mrs. Higden, “if there had been the money to put him to it.” She had seen him handle tools that he had borrowed to mend the mangle, or to knock a broken piece of furniture together, in a surprising manner. As to constructing toys for the Minders, out of nothing, he had done that daily. And once as many as a dozen people had got together in the lane to see the neatness with which he fitted the broken pieces of a foreign monkey’s musical instrument. “That’s well,” said the Secretary. “It will not be hard to find a trade for him.”