They waited until the boy was well out of earshot, then returned to the

road, crossed it, and entered the lane on the opposite side.

Some twenty minutes later three figures were faintly discernible on the

white road, coming up the hill.

"Here they are," whispered Eves. "They're bringing Josy to protect their

rear. Now into cover!"

They crept through the hedge and waited. No footsteps sounded on the

road.

"Wearing rubber-soled shoes," whispered Eves. "So much the better; the

tar will stick."

Presently the voice of Noakes in subdued tones came to them.

"Now, Josiah, do 'ee stop here at the end of the lane, and if so be you

see or hear any one coming up or down along, do 'ee run and tell

us--quiet as a cat, mind 'ee."

"All right, feyther. I'll tell 'ee sure enough."

The men passed on. Smail sniffed.

"A powerful smell o' tar, Mr. Noakes," he said in a hoarse murmur.

"Mm'm," grunted Noakes. "Trenchard don't tar his fences till autumn.

'Tis some mischief o' they young varmints, belike. I'll tar 'em!"

"You be sure o' the law, Mr. Noakes? Young feller said summat about my

being in quod _again_. How did he know I been in quod?"

"Quiet, Smail. I'll answer for 'ee, man. Now, you go for'ard, straight

along. When you get into coal-shed, gi'e me a whistle."

"Not if I knows it. I can't get in that there winder wi'out being

hoisted, and 'tis you must hoist me."

"Stuff and rubbish! Winder's low, and don't 'ee see 'tis best I

shouldn't be seen, if so be the door inside's locked and you can't get

in?"

The men had halted some yards from the patch of tar. Smail was

insistent. Noakes declined to accompany him to the shed, and it seemed

to the two watchers that matters had come to a deadlock.

"Now, Bob," whispered Eves, "we must give them a start."

He pulled back the trigger of his gun, causing a slight click.

"What's that?" murmured Smail.

"I didn't see nothing," returned Noakes.

"But I heard something."

"'Twas a bird in the hedge, then. My Josiah would have give us warning

if he seed any one, and they young fellers be a mile away. Get on,

Smail; ten shillings extry, man."

He took Smail's arm and led him, still reluctant, up the lane. They had

just reached the edge of the tar when there were two loud reports from

the direction of the hedge a few yards behind them.

Startled, they plunged forward, floundered through the first few feet of

the tar, tripped over the wire, and sprawled at full length, more or

less mixed up with each other, in the deeper end.

[Illustration: "THEY TRIPPED OVER THE WIRE AND SPRAWLED AT FULL

LENGTH."]

"Splendid!" whispered Eves. "Your tar entanglement is a great success,

Bob. Let's get back; we can very well leave them there."

As they returned to the road they heard the rumble of cart wheels coming

up the hill, and voices. The cart stopped.

"That's young Josiah speaking," said Templeton. "We had better wait and

explain, Tom."

"All right, the cart's coming on again."

They reached the farmyard gate and stood waiting. The lamps of the

vehicle fell upon their faces, and both started when a lady's voice

exclaimed:

"Robert!"

"Aunt Caroline!" said Templeton in an undertone to Eves.

"And Trenchard!" cried Eves. "What luck!"

A ramshackle fly pulled up at the gate, and Mr. Trenchard assisted Miss

Templeton to alight.

"What has happened?" asked the lady. "We heard shots, and a little boy

came running down the hill crying that his father was killed. It is Mr.

Noakes, Mr. Trenchard says."

"Quite a mistake, Aunt," said Templeton. "I _am_ glad to see you. Come

in; I'll explain. This is my friend Eves."

"Yes, yes; but the boy was greatly agitated. Run after him, Robert, and

tell him that his father is _not_ killed."

"My hat!" muttered Eves, with a grimace, as Templeton sprinted down the

hill.

"What was it, Mr. Eves? I am greatly concerned that the little fellow

should have had such a terrible shock."

"Well, Miss Templeton, I really--you see--oh, yes, it was Bob's tar

entanglement, you know. But Mr. Trenchard has told you about old

Noakes, I expect."

"Mr. Trenchard has told me things about Mr. Noakes that I cannot credit.

But I do not understand--a tar entanglement, you said?"

"Yes, an invention of Bob's, you know; a splendid thing. But there's

such a lot to tell: won't you go into the house? Then Bob and I can

tell you between us."

"Very well. Give the driver ten shillings for his fare."

"I've only four and elevenpence half-penny," said Eves, with a smile.

"Dear me! Then I must ask the driver to come to the house. My notes

are in my dressing-case. One cannot be too careful."

By the time Miss Templeton had found her money and paid the driver

Templeton was back.

"It's all right, Aunt. The boy is going home with his father."

Eves grinned.

"Oh!" said Miss Templeton. "Now, as Robert is out of breath, perhaps

you will be good enough, Mr. Eves, to run down and tell Mr. Noakes that

I desire to see him here, without fail, at ten o'clock to-morrow

morning."

Eves threw a melancholy look at Templeton as he departed.

Mrs. Trenchard had received her visitor with transports of delight. It

came out that Mr. Trenchard, having failed in his errand in London, had

encountered Miss Templeton on his way back at the junction a few miles

away, and, completing the journey with her, had explained the

circumstances that had led to his absence from home. The lady heard his

story with mingled incredulity and indignation. On its repetition by

Mrs. Trenchard she exclaimed:

"I am amazed and horrified, Martha. Do you know that when I was last

here, ten years ago, that man Noakes came to me and borrowed a

considerable sum of money for the extension of his business. He seemed

a civil and obliging person, and I was glad to lend to a respectable

tradesman--of course, at a reasonable rate of interest. He has paid me

the interest regularly, but always regretted that circumstances did not

permit of his repaying the loan. It is shocking to find that he has

actually used that money--my money--to involve your dear husband in

difficulties. Such depravity! I shall deal very sternly with Mr. Noakes

to-morrow, I assure you."

"Ah! To think of it, now," said Mrs. Trenchard. "And that dreadful man

as he put in here--well, I do owe your nephew something, ma'am, for he

and his friend Mr. Eves blowed him out with the most terrible smell that

ever was, and no harm to a soul. Mr. Bob's inventions are that

wonderful!"

"Really, Robert," said Miss Templeton, "I hope you have not been

troubling Mrs. Trenchard with your inventions. It was clearly

understood that you came here to work on the land."

"And so he hev, ma'am," put in Trenchard. "Him and his friend hev worked

on the land, and done inventions as well, and one of 'em saved my root

crops, it did. I'm not the man to say anything against inventions."

"I am glad to hear you have invented something useful, Robert. Was that

tar entanglement that your friend spoke of also an invention of yours?"

"Well, yes, Aunt, it was," said Templeton, somewhat embarrassed. "It

was an idea for worrying the Germans, you know. But, of course--here's

Tom, he'll explain better than I can."

"Oh, I say!" protested Eves, who had just come in. Then he began to

laugh. "My word! He did look funny--tar from head to foot. You see,

Miss Templeton, we got rid of that ruffian Smail once by means of

stinks--I mean, sulphuretted hydrogen, a gas very useful in chemistry.

Then, suspecting he'd come back, it occurred to me that we might teach

him a lesson by putting into practice Bob's idea of a tar entanglement.

It really worked out splendidly. Noakes--he's a bad egg----"

"A what?" asked the lady.

"A bad man, ma'am. He and Smail came up, and we let off the guns just

to encourage 'em, and they fell slap on their faces in the lane over

there, and I'm sure they won't get the tar off for a month."

"You gave Mr. Noakes my message?"

"Yes."

"And he said he would come, no doubt."

"I'm sorry to say, ma'am, he swore like a trooper. But in the

circumstances I dare say you would have done the same--not you, of

course. I didn't mean that; I mean any one--that is, any man."

"But no gentleman, Mr. Eves."

"Certainly--that is, of course not; but then no gentleman would ever be

Noakes."

Noakes did not appear next morning. Miss Templeton sent one of the

maids to fetch him. She came back and reported that Mr. Noakes had been

suddenly called away. He never reappeared in Polstead. The story of

the tarring was told by Smail, who felt aggrieved, at the village inn

that night, and Noakes saw next morning that his position in the village

was ruined. He gave instructions for the sale of his business, and Miss

Templeton generously cancelled his debt to her in return for his release

of Mr. Trenchard.

Miss Templeton gave her lecture on food economy, the last of her tour,

and the holidays being over, returned with her nephew and Tom Eves to

London.

"A ripping holiday, old man," said Eves as the friends parted. "Lay in

a stock of bright ideas for next year."

*THE CLIPPER OF THE ROAD*

*I*

"How long will you be, Bob?"

"Can't say: perhaps twenty minutes. You needn't shout."

"Jolly sensitive, ain't you? What about my tender spots? After I've

taken the trouble to write to your Aunt Caroline for your address, and

got it, with yards and yards of advice to a young man, and then

sacrificed a day of my leave to hunt you up, you won't spare a jiff to

talk to a fellow, and when I ask you a civil question, tell me not to

shout, with the wind roaring like a barrage, and that wretched machine

squeaking like----"

"Oh, come now, Tom, that's not fair!" said Templeton. "I told you I

must finish grinding these valves, then I'm free. And as for talking, I

can hear you quite well; that's all that matters, isn't it?"

"Been cultivating repartee with your C.O., I suppose," remarked Eves.

"Or else your naturally amiable disposition has broken down under the

tender mercies of the Boche. Aunt Caroline warned me, I admit: said you

had undergone great mental strain, underlined, and were feverishly

anxious to repair your wasted life, underlined twice. What did the Boche

do to you, Bobby, old man?"

"Tell you by and by: must finish this job."

Eves sighed with resignation, and looked round for a seat. There was

nothing available except a bench along the wall, littered with tools and

odds and ends of machinery. Being also plentifully besmeared with black

grease, it looked far from inviting, especially as Eves was wearing a

new pair of slacks; but he cleared a space large enough to afford

sitting room, and taking the outer sheets of a newspaper that lay handy,

spread them on the board, seated himself thereon, and opened the inner

sheet to kill time until Templeton should have finished his job.

Tom Eves, whose cap bore the badge of a certain regiment of Light

Infantry, was in the final stage of convalescence from wounds received

in action before Amiens. While in hospital he had learnt that

Templeton, taken a prisoner in the early days of the Germans' spring

offensive, was among the first batch of officers repatriated under the

terms of the armistice, and on applying to Miss Templeton for her

nephew's address, was astonished and amused to hear that he was hard at

work in a little Dorset town within easy reach.

"Just like old Bob!" he said to himself. "Two months' leave! And

instead of playing the giddy goat, as any sensible fellow would do in

his place, he feels he must make up for lost time and swot away at his

old inventions. With a good balance at Cox's, too. Aunt Caroline says

she quite approves of his spending his money in preparation for his

career--just the sort of thing she would say! Well, I'll look him up,

the old juggins, first leave I have!"

Templeton, in fact, taking his usual serious view of things in general

and his inventions in particular, had been unable to reconcile himself

to the prospect of two months' idleness, after having kicked his heels

for seven months in a prisoners' camp, months during which his brain had

teemed with "notions." There was the two-way motor; the turbine motor;

an automatic fire extinguisher; a sound increaser; a combined tin-opener

and fountain pen, with corkscrew attachment; a road yacht; a push and

pull door-handle. Aunt Caroline was so much impressed with the potential

public utility of the bright ideas he expounded to her, that she placed

L25 to his credit with Cox's, and warmly commended him when he told her

that he had found a field for his experiments in the little town of

Pudlington. "A _delightful_ spot!" she said, in her emphatic way. "A

quaint old town, quite _charming_! And _such_ invigorating air!" The

manager of the British Motor Garage, just outside the town aforesaid,

had agreed to give Templeton facilities for experimenting in exchange

for his services--an arrangement that suited with his own and his aunt's

ideas of economy. Wilkins, the manager, was short-handed: indeed

Templeton found himself more often than not in sole charge of the

garage, for Wilkins was frequently absent, driving his only serviceable

car for the officers of the camp a few miles away. Thus, when Eves made

his appearance on this bright, windy December morning, he found his old

friend, encased in the blue overalls of a mechanic, alone in the

repairing shop, and engrossed in the job he had in hand.

For a few minutes Eves read the newspaper, without addressing any

further remark to Templeton.

"I say, Bob!" he exclaimed at last, "here's a chance for you.... All

right--I won't shout, but listen! 'G.R.--Notice. Tenders for the

purchase of waste from the Upper Edgecombe Camp should reach the Officer

Commanding not later than noon on Thursday, December 12.' Fortunes have

been made out of waste. Perhaps you have tendered already: I see the

paper's nearly a week old."

"I haven't," replied Templeton, curtly.

"Well, you're not a rag and bone merchant, it's true, but----"

"Considering that to-day's the 12th, and it's just on eleven now, it's

too late to tender, even if I wanted to."

"Which you don't! _My_ bright ideas are always nipped in the bud. I

say, Bob, was there anything in that story we heard in our mess at

Corbie--that idea of yours, you know?"

"Which one?" asked Templeton, pausing for a moment in his task. He was

always interested in ideas.

"Well, they said you were showing off one of your inventions to a brass

hat--some sort of a door-handle, I think it was--and he got fixed up in

a dug-out, and you couldn't release him for three hours or so, and he

got no lunch. Everybody said it was a splendid rag."

"Idiots!"

"But wasn't it true? The story ran through the front line trenches for

thirty miles or so, and bucked the men up no end."

"It wasn't a rag at all. The fact is, the staff-major was too

impatient. He wouldn't wait till I'd finished explaining the idea, and

the result was what you might have expected. It was his own fault--the

idea's all right."

"What about your gas machine, then?"

"Well, what about it?" The inventor was roused: he stood facing Eves,

with the air of a cat whose fur has been rubbed the wrong way.

"The story that came to us was that you nearly caused a vacancy in the

command of your battalion. Everybody said you were taking a short cut

to getting your second pip."

"Asses!" growled Templeton. "The explanation simply is that a screw was

a trifle loose----"

"Now nobody said that, Bob, I assure you. Everybody said you were an

awfully clever chap, only----"

"I tell you a screw was a bit loose, owing to the lack of suitable

appliances, and the gas came out a second or two before it ought. And

the C.O. needn't have put his nose quite so close to the machine: I

didn't ask him to!"

"I suppose the adjutant was too inquisitive, then. Not that time; I

mean when you were trying that self-adjusting bomb of yours. The

Brigade Bombing Officer was full of it, and the mess were quite jealous,

because we never had such rags on our sector."

"Rags!" snorted Templeton in disgust. "I hate the word! You know

perfectly well that I never rag. That self-adjusting bomb was a very

serious matter."

"Quite so. It's only lucky it wasn't more serious, isn't it? We were

told it cost your adjutant his left eyebrow and half a promising

moustache."

"Grossly exaggerated!" Templeton exclaimed.

"As Mark Twain said when he read the report of his own death! But

what's this, Bob?"

A long green motor-car was drawing up slowly and noisily in front of the

garage, emitting a cloud of smoke. From the seat beside the chauffeur

sprang a large man, wearing a heavily furred coat. He came round the

car and called out, before he reached the open door of the repairing

shop:

"Here, I say there! Can you do anythink for this car? My fool of a

shover can't find out what's wrong, and we'll crock up altogether if we

go on like this. The engine's knocking like anythink."

By this time he had reached the doorway, and he stood there facing

Templeton, after shooting one brief glance at Eves on the bench.

Templeton, looking a little more solemn even than usual--or perhaps his

expression was partly due to the black smears on his face--had not time

to reply before Eves put in a word.

"Can yer do anythink for the gentleman?" he said.

"P'raps you've got another car handy?" said the stranger.

"No, there's none in just now," replied Templeton.

"Can't you find one? Look here, young feller, I'll make it worth yer

while. I've got to call on the mayor and be at the camp inside of an

hour. What yer say?"

"There's not another car in the place. They're all at the camp."

"Well, then, you got to do somethink, and look alive!"

"Don't keep the gentleman waiting!" said Eves, already enjoying himself.

The turn things had taken seemed to carry prospects of what he called a

"splendid rag."

Templeton asked the chauffeur to step out, and taking his place, started

the car, listening intently.

"There! Didn't I tell yer?" said the owner, trotting alongside.

"What's wrong, eh?"

Templeton pulled up within a few yards, and backed.

"Oil," he said, laconically. "Your big ends are going."

"Big ends! What the jooce! Here, you Thomson, why didn't you give the

engine no oil?"

"'Cos there warn't none," said the chauffeur, sulkily. "I told yer----"

"None of yer lip, now! Well, if it's only oil--Here, mister, oil up,

and look sharp about it! None of yer country dawdling: get a move on!"

Templeton looked over the side of the car, and said quietly, in his mild

considered way:

"I should just like to remark that unless you can moderate your

impatience, or curb your somewhat insolent expression of it, you may

take yourself and your car elsewhere."

"Yes," cut in Eves, who had come out into the road. "If I were you,

young feller, I'd jolly well chuck him into the horse-pond."

[Illustration: "'YES,' CUT IN EVES, WHO HAD COME OUT INTO THE ROAD. 'IF

I WERE YOU, YOUNG FELLER, I'D JOLLY WELL CHUCK HIM INTO THE

HORSE-POND.'"]

The stranger looked from one to the other, his astonishment at

Templeton's address yielding to wrath.

"Who are you a-talking to?" he cried, making an aggressive move towards

Eves.

"Not to you, my dear sir, not to you. I was merely telling this young

feller what I should do if I were he, and you may thank your lucky stars

I'm not."

The man eyed the speaker truculently, as if meditating chastisement; but

Eves, in spite of the blue band on his arm, looked so well knit, so

vigorous, that valour subsided into discretion. Muttering something

about "young pups in khaki," the stranger turned towards the car, saw

that Templeton had begun lubricating, and strolled across the yard

towards a strange vehicle standing outside the garage.

"Here, Thomson, come and look at this," he called.

For a few minutes the two men walked round the vehicle, discussing its

appearance, laughing as one pointed out this or that feature to the

other.

"It ain't a car," said the chauffeur.

"More like a boat," said his employer. "This here's a mast, ain't it?

P'raps it's one of them hydroplanes."

"They're the same as airyplanes without the wheels. My idea it's an

agricultural implement: now-a-days they've all sorts of rum contraptions

in country parts."

They examined the vehicle, perfunctorily and without knowledge, until

Templeton called out that the oiling was finished.

"Quite time too," said the stranger, looking at his watch. "She'll go

all right?" he asked, as he rejoined Templeton in the road.

"Naturally I can't give any guarantee," replied Templeton, "but in all

probability the engine will last out a few hours--until you have time to

give it a thorough overhauling. If I may make a suggestion, let it cool

down and run slowly, or the big ends will go altogether."

"H'm! S'pose you know! How much?"

"Oh! say half-a-crown."

"Here y'are. Get in, Thomson." He shoved the chauffeur into the car.

"Straight up!" he cried.

The car rattled away, still smoking, but less vigorously than before.

"Charming man!" said Eves, as the two returned to the shop. "Come

across many like him, Bobby?"

"Oh! one meets all sorts. But I really think, Tom, I should be in

danger of losing my temper if everybody who stopped here for repairs

were quite so--so----"

"Exactly. Well, old sport, do hurry up with those valves. I had an

early breakfast, and no squish--simply rotten, breakfast without squish.

So hurry up, and we'll go and swop some coupons."

*II*

Templeton placidly resumed his job; Eves remounted the bench and again

took up the newspaper. After a minute or two he exclaimed:

"I say, what do you think of this? 'Our worthy mayor, Alderman

Noakes'----"

"Who?"

"Alderman Noakes. Recalls sweet memories, eh, old sport? That summer

idyll in our early youth--law! what ages ago it seems! 'But ah! how it

was sweet!' That's Browning, old man; not my own, I assure you. I seem

to see, down the dim vista of departed years, the figure of our Noakes,

smothered in half-consumed carbon, otherwise soot; and again the same

Noakes, sprawling in a purling stream; and yet again the same Noakes,

affectionately embracing his mother earth--various phases of Noakes

concurrent with the flow of ideas in the cerebellum of----"

"Oh, dry up, Tom! You really are an awful ass sometimes."

"Who are you a-talking to, young feller? I was just pointing out that

the name Noakes, on the principle of the association of ideas--but let's

see what it says. 'Our worthy mayor, Alderman Noakes, accompanied by

the bailiff and reeves, will on December 21, for the four hundred and

fifty-second time in the history of this ancient borough, perform the

quaint ceremony of anointing the British Stone.' The worthy mayor must

be a hoary old Methuselah if he's performed the ceremony four hundred

and fifty-one times: he might be the great-grandfather ten times removed

of that old rascal we knew. And if he's even so distantly related as

that, he's probably a rascal too, and deserves to be kept waiting."

"Waiting? What for?"

"Why, for that model of urbanity and fur collar who wanted you to do

somethink to this 'ere car and look alive, young feller. He said he was

going to call on the mayor, you remember."

"He's part of the show, perhaps. I wonder what that ceremony is. What

a ramshackle old car that was! But all existing cars will be scrapped

when I get my two-way motor going."

"That's the latest, is it?"

"Yes: I've great hopes of it. I've partly drawn up the

specification--I'm going to take out a patent--but I can't finish it

until I get a nozzle that's being specially manufactured to my order."

"Rum thing, Bob, that most of your thingummy-bobs seldom do get

finished: what? But we've had some splendid rags out of them all the

same."

"Now that's not fair," cried Templeton, swinging round, and speaking

with a heat pardonable in an earnest inventor. "My road yacht is

complete; it's out there in the yard at this very moment."

"That thing old Rabbit-skin was poking his nose into! What's the idea?"

"Well, it's not exactly new; it's an adaptation of the sand yacht. With

petrol scarce, I asked myself, why waste petrol when the wind can be

harnessed for nothing an hour?"

"Jolly patriotic, and sporting too, old son. How's it work?"

"Well, you see, it's a light chassis and a skeleton body with a

mainsail, rigged sloop fashion, which gives me several miles an hour in

a light wind; it's good for twelve or fourteen in a fair breeze on a

good road on the flat. What it can do in the kind of wind we have

to-day I don't know."

"But hang it all, what if you're becalmed? And what about hills, and

bridges, and all that?"

"You've spotted my main difficulty--to obtain the maximum sail area

consistent with the stability of the craft and the limitations of road

navigation. Of course I've got an auxiliary motor for use in calms and

uphill; but bridges aren't such a nuisance as the hedges; they constrict

the roads confoundedly. I have to stick to the highway ... I say, old

chap, just answer that telephone call for me, will you? Another five

minutes will see me through."

Eves walked across to the telephone box in the corner. The following

conversation ensued.

"Hullo!"

"Are you Mr. Wilkins?"

"Am I Wilkins, Bob?" (in a whisper).

"Say you're the British Motor Garage," said Templeton. "Wilkins is

out."

"Are you there? Righto! We're the British Motor Garage."

"Well, I say, sorry to trouble you, but Noakes's 'phone is out of order.

Tell him he can cut his tender thirty per cent.: no other offers."

"Hold on a jiff." Eves moved from the mouthpiece and turned towards

Templeton. "Noakes again, Bob. Our worthy mayor. You're to give him a

message, something about cutting a tender."

"Tell him I know nothing about Noakes."

"Righto! Leave it to me.... Hullo! A tender cut, you said?"

"Can't you hear? I said, tell Noakes he can cut his tender by thirty

per cent."

"All right; I've got it now. But who's Noakes, and what have we to do

with him?"

"Aren't you Mr. Wilkins?"

"Wilkins is out. I'm speaking from his shop."

"Oh, hang!"

"He's cut off, Bob," said Eves, ruefully, hanging up the receiver. "I

wanted to ask him about Methuselah. You've done at last?"

"Yes, thank goodness!"

"Well, clean yourself, and come along. Hullo! Here's another visitor."

A tall, lean, loosely-built man was hurriedly crossing the yard towards

the shop door.

"Good morning to you," he said, somewhat breathlessly. "I'm just off

the train from London, and there's never a bit of a car, and what'll I

do at all, when I've to be at the Upper Edgecombe camp before twelve?

I'll be glad now if so be you can tend me the loan of a car."

"You're the second man within ten minutes or so who has wanted to get to

the camp in a hurry," said Templeton.

"Do you say that, now? And what like might the first be, if you please

to tell me?"

Templeton was considering how to begin a serious description; but Eves

forestalled him.

"A fur-lined coat, a bristly moustache, and a voice like a corncrake.

That's near enough for anythink."

"It is that," said the stranger, his blue eyes twinkling for an instant.

His expression became grave as he added: "Sure it's mighty unlucky,

without you have a car. They told me in the town I'd get one here, or

nowhere at all."

"I'm sorry I haven't one handy," said Templeton. "Ours are out."

"I say, Bob, what about the road yacht?" said Eves, who had been

attracted by the civility of the Irishman, and with quick wit had jumped

to the conclusion that he was on the same errand as the boor. "There's

a spanking wind."

"Well, if he doesn't mind risking it," said Templeton, dubiously.

"'Deed now, I'll be after risking anything."

"Anythink?" said Eves.

"You'll have his measure taken," said the Irishman, smiling again. "And

if it's a five-pound note----"

"Don't mention it," said Templeton. "Tom, just lock up, will you? while

I get ready."

He hastened across the yard, opened the bonnet of the car, and spent a

few minutes with the inner mysteries. By the time he had satisfied

himself that the engine was in working order the other two had joined

him.

"I've only a quart of petrol," he said. "Wilkins has taken the rest, and

our monthly allowance isn't due till to-morrow. The camp's about eleven

miles, and we've nearly half an hour; but there's a stiff hill that will

use most of the petrol; it's an old Ford and can barely do fifteen miles

to the gallon."

"I'll run up the hill on my two feet to lighten the car," said the

stranger, eagerly; "and sure I'd have run the whole way from the station

if I were twenty years younger."

"You must have been a stayer in your time, sir," said Eves.

"Maybe I was that, the time I did a Marathon, and was not the last

either. Only for being five and forty I wouldn't be troubling you, for

a matter of eleven miles. But it's a sail I see you have. There's a

nice breeze from the west, surely, and if the car doesn't upset on us

I'm thinking we'd do without petrol only for the hill."

"Faith removes mountains," said Eves. "You've a pretty good share of

it."

"Faith, and I have then. And if so be the car upsets on us, sure we'll

have a bit of fun, and maybe that'll make up for the disappointment."

Eves chatted with the genial Irishman during the few minutes in which

Templeton was making his final preparations. These completed, Templeton

ran the machine out into the roadway. It was a strange-looking object.

The body was little more than a skeleton framework, affording seating

accommodation for three, and the necessary protection for the working

parts. The drive was on the front wheels; the steering gear connected

with the back wheels. A strong single mast was stayed just behind the

driver's seat. A bowsprit projected some five feet beyond the radiator.

There were two sails, mainsail and jib. As Templeton unfurled these,

Eves noticed that the former had been recently patched.

"Torn in a gale, Bob?" he asked.

"No. The other day a wretched farm wagon claimed more than its fair

share of the road, and as of course I wouldn't give way there was what

some people call a contretemps. Look here, Tom, you must manage the

mainsail; I can deal with the jib. Get in: we've no time to spare."

Templeton got into the driver's seat, the other two men into the seats

behind. The car was started on petrol, and ran at a moderate pace over

the half-mile of narrow road that led to the main street of the little

town. Dodging the market traffic, Templeton steered the car out at the

further end, and as soon as he was clear of the town slowed down and

gave the word to hoist the sails. These bellied out in the brisk

following wind; the strange vehicle gathered way; and, looking over his

shoulder with a smile of gratification, Templeton said:

"Now we're off. Look out for gybing at the corners, Tom."

*III*

Templeton's road yacht had been for a week or two a fairly familiar

object in the neighbourhood, and the few country folk on foot whom it

met or passed in the first few minutes of its voyage graced it with no

more attention than was evinced by a stolid stare, a shake of the head,

and a sort of prolonged sigh. A spectator of quicker mind--and he would

need to have been quick, for the pace was already great--might have

taken a fugitive interest in noting the facial expressions of the

vehicle's three occupants. Templeton looked earnest and responsible:

Eves wore only the shadow of his usual smile, for he was oppressed by an

anxious doubt whether his former experiences of yachting would serve him

in handling the sail of this novel craft. The wind was not only strong

but gusty, and at slight turns in the road the boom showed a tendency to

swing out of his control and commit assault and battery on the person of

his passenger. That gentleman, however, was evidently on the top of

enjoyment. Whatever his errand was, it was driven from his mind by

sheer exhilaration. He lived wholly in the present. Peering over

Templeton's shoulder at the speedometer, he reported with boyish

excitement the movements of the indicator--twenty, twenty-five, thirty:

"Believe you me, it's thirty miles; the like of that, now!"

Approaching a sharp bend in the road, Templeton gradually throttled down

until the speed was reduced to fifteen; and when, as the yacht rounded

the bend, the change of course caused the boom to swing over and knock

the Irishman's hat off, the genial stranger shouted with glee and

declared that he was having the time of his life, begor.

Eves hauled in the mainsheet; the pace again rose to twenty-five; and a

marked down-grade enabled Templeton to maintain that speed for a time

with the engine switched off. At the end of the dip, where the road

bent again, Templeton was faced by the first up-grade--a long straight

stretch almost in the teeth of the wind. Some little distance from the

foot of the incline he switched on his engine, and took the ascent for

the most part on top, dropping to first about two hundred yards from the

summit. At this point the passenger, looking back along the road,

exclaimed:

"There's a car in the wake of us."

"Overhauling us?" asked Eves.

"She's not, then. How would the likes of her?"

"She will, though. We shall have to slow down. Look ahead."

A heavy farm wagon drawn by three horses had appeared over the crest of

the hill, and was lumbering down with skidpans adjusted, and occupying

three-fourths of the roadway.

"It's the way we'd see a collision," said the Irishman, chortling. The

prospect had evidently no terrors for him. Eves, on the other hand, for

all his delight in a rag, felt by no means easy in mind.

"Slow down, Bob," he cried, anxiously, at the same time hauling in the

sheet until the sail stood almost parallel with the side of the vehicle.

Templeton made no reply; but knowing from experience that the road yacht

was a likely source of anxiety to horses he slowed down, at the imminent

risk of stopping entirely, and steered well into the hedge. The carter

hurried to the leader's head and pulled in to his side of the road,

giving only a gaping stare as the yacht grazed the off wheels of his

wagon and the hedge on the other side.

"As good a bit of steering as ever I saw," cried the Irishman. "Did you

get a whiff of the mangolds?"

"I was expecting to be mangled," said Eves, grimly. "I say, Bob, the

wind's dead ahead, and the sail's no bally good."

"Lower it, man, lower it," said Templeton. "We'll be all right at the

next turn."

The yacht was crawling painfully to the top of the hill when there came

from behind the sound of a hooter. Eves and the Irishman looked back.

A large car had just rounded the bend below, and was mounting the hill

with a great roaring and rattling, distinctly audible above the noise of

their own straining engine.

"By George, Bob," cried Eves, "that green car that called at the garage

is upon our heels."

"I hear it," said Templeton. "Couldn't mistake it: I'll give it room to

pass."

Before the yacht had gamed the top of the hill the following car,

hooting continuously, closed with it and dashed past.

"I say, Bob," shouted Eves, "did you see who was in it?"

"No. Didn't look. Who is it?"

"Rabbit-skin and Noakes."

"Our Noakes?"

"Philemon, as sure as a gun."

"Our worthy mayor, evidently. Rummy!"

"What was that you said?" asked Eves, turning to the Irishman, who had

uttered a sharp exclamation as the car ran by.

"It was what I don't care to repeat. The fellow you do be calling

Rabbit-skin has the rise got on me, and indeed I'm sorry I put you to

the trouble and all."

"Noakes, you mean?"

"I do not. Noakes is unbeknown to me. But by the look of it that car

will get to the camp by twelve o'clock, and we will not, and then

Saunders, him with the fur collar, will be the way of slipping in his

tender and I'll be left on the doorstep."

A light flashed on Eves.

"You're tendering for the camp waste?" he asked, quickly.

"I was. It was told me Saunders----"

"All right," Eves interrupted. Leaning over Templeton's shoulder he

said: "I say, Bob, it's up to you, old man. You remember that telephone

call. Noakes and Rabbit-skin are in co. Tendering for the camp waste,

you know. He mustn't get in first with a higher tender. Can you hustle

a bit?"

"I daren't accelerate till we get to the top: daren't waste petrol. But

then----"

The yacht panted slowly up the last few yards of the hill. When it

reached the top, the green car, enveloped in a cloud of smoke, was

already some three hundred yards ahead, racing along a straight level

stretch of road. It was clear that Saunders had recognised a business

rival in the Irishman, and was urging his car to its utmost speed.

At the summit a bend in the road had once more brought the wind on the

beam. Eves instantly hoisted the sail, and the yacht in a few moments

gathered way. The road here ran through an open down; there were no

hedges to blanket the yacht; and on the high ground the wind blew with

the force of half a gale. Giving signs of the liveliest excitement, the

Irishman, his hair flying in the wind, bent over the back of Templeton's

seat, and every few seconds shouted the indications of the speedometer,

his voice growing louder as the figures mounted up.

"Ten--fourteen--eighteen--twenty"--he followed the pointer round the

dial, and when it quivered on 33 he swung his arm round, uttering a wild

"Hurroosh!" and was not a whit abashed when Templeton half turned a

rebuking face towards him and warned him of the risk of plunging

overboard.

There was, in truth, much reason for the man's ebullient spirits. The

engine was switched off: there was little or no vibration; the yacht, as

he afterwards declared, seemed to float along the road. Even when she

had a decided list to starboard, the near wheels leaving the ground, he

laughed as he threw his long body to windward, hanging perilously over

the roadway, while Eves with mouth grim-set kept the bounding craft on a

broad reach. It was soon apparent that she was more than holding her

own with the long car ahead. The cloud of smoke came nearer and nearer,

floating across the road to leeward like the trail from the funnel of a

tramp steamer.

The green car was running an erratic course more or less in the middle

of the road. Within thirty or forty yards of her Templeton insistently

sounded his horn and drew over to the right, preparing to pass. Next

moment he jammed on his brake hard, with an exclamation seldom heard on

his phlegmatic lips. So far from steering to his own side of the road,

the driver of the car had also pulled across to the right, with the

evident intention of blocking the passage. But for Templeton's

promptitude the bowsprit must inevitably have run into the hood of the

car. The jerk threw the Irishman heavily forward over the back of the

seat, and when he recovered himself he broke into violent objurgation,

which had no more effect on the occupants of the car than the strident

blasts of Templeton's horn. They did not even look round. A

turf-cutter on the moor scratched his head and gazed open-mouthed at the

novel spectacle, and on the other side two affrighted ponies galloped

with tossing manes and tails through and over the whins and gorse.

For the moment Templeton was baffled. Then Eves, leaning forward,

shouted, to be heard above the roaring of the car:

"Pass her on the near side, Bob."

Templeton nodded, reserving for the future his criticism that, in the

circumstances, Eves might more properly have used a nautical term. He

checked the pace still further until nearly fifty yards separated him

from the obstructive car. Then, with his horn at full blast, he

released the brake, and the yacht shot forward. As he had expected, the

car clung still more closely to the off side, leaving only the narrowest

margin between the wheels and the rough edge of the turf. Suddenly, with

a turn of the wheel that caused the yacht to lurch giddily, he switched

on the engine and ran deftly into the open space on the near side. A

yell of delight broke from the Irishman.

"Sit down and be quiet," shouted Eves, "or we'll capsize yet."

Noakes had risen in the car, and was bawling in the ear of the

chauffeur. The yacht had drawn level with the car's wind screen before

Templeton's manoeuvre was appreciated. Now, attempting to counter it,

the chauffeur, under Noakes's vehement prompting, edged towards the left

with the object of forcing the lighter-built yacht into the ditch which

on this side parted the roadway from the moor. Perceiving the danger,

Eves, with the capacity for rising to the occasion which had

distinguished him in former enterprises with his friend, instantly eased

the mainsheet: the boom swung out, and came into sharp contact, first

with Noakes's head, then with the wind screen, which it shivered to

fragments. The chauffeur, who had glanced round, ducked his head and in

his flurry gave way for a moment. That moment was long enough. Eves

hauled in the sheet, and the yacht, under the dual impulse of engine and

wind, shot forward and in a few seconds was clear.

[Illustration: "THE BOOM SWUNG OUT, AND CAME INTO SHARP CONTACT, FIRST

WITH NOAKES'S HEAD, THEN WITH THE WIND SCREEN."]

"Hurroosh!" yelled the Irishman, standing with difficulty erect in the

swaying vehicle and looking back along the road. "Noakes, if that's the

name of him, is after shaking his fist on us. I wouldn't say but he's

cursing mighty fine, but sure I can't hear him for the noise of the

creature. Saunders and the driver-man might be having a shindy by the

looks of it. His head might be sore on him, and he'll not deserve

it,--the man, I mean: I wouldn't be wasting a word of pity on Saunders

if so be it was him."

Meanwhile, Templeton, knowing that his petrol would barely last out, had

slowed down.

"Tell me if they draw up with us," he called over his shoulder.

"I will, begor," said the Irishman. "She's after doing that same now,

and smoking like a tug on the Liffey."

"He's driving her hard," added Eves.

"That's all right," said Templeton. "It's my turn now."

A bend in the road brought the wind only a few points on the port bow,

and Templeton, sparing his petrol, allowed the yacht to lose way. The

green car, hooting angrily, and leaving a huge trail of smoke, rattled

on at a great pace, and moment by moment lessened the distance between

it and the yacht. But Eves and Templeton between them, by their

dexterous handling of steering wheel and sail, succeeded where the

others had failed. The road was effectively blocked; short of running

the yacht down, with the risk of heavy casualties on both sides, as Eves

remarked, Noakes and his friend had no means of preventing their Irish

competitor from maintaining his lead and coming first to the winning

post.

For a full mile the yacht zigzagged from one side of the road to the

other. Eves handled the sheet very smartly, but soon found it hopeless

to attempt to cope at once with the gustiness of the wind and the sudden

swerves of the yacht, and finally contented himself with letting the

boom swing freely within a narrow circle, fearing every moment that a

lurch would capsize them all. Another turn in the road again gave them

the wind; the yacht darted forward on a straight course, and the

Irishman reported in high glee that the green car, grunting like Patsy

O'Halloran's pig and snorting like Mike Grady's bull, was dropping

behind as fast as she could run.

"What's the time?" Templeton called suddenly over his shoulder.

"Nine minutes to the hour," replied the Irishman, consulting his watch.

"Will we do it?"

Now that the exciting part of the race was apparently over, he had

become alive to business. Twelve o'clock was the hour named for the

lodging of tenders with the camp commandant; "and with the likes of the

Army," he said, "you might be done if so be you was half a wink late.

It's not that I've a word to say in favour of any matter of punctuality

in the Army; but they're the way of making a mighty fuss over trifles.

It was told me the name they put to it is red tape."

"We'll do it," said Templeton, "provided, first, the petrol lasts out

the hill ahead; second, there aren't any lorries in the way. But in any

case we must run it fine, you know. You don't want Noakes or Saunders

to get in at all, I take it."

"Sorra a bit."

"Would they tender higher than you?" asked Eves.

"They might."

"What a pity we didn't give Noakes that message, Bob. Some one at the

camp wanted to give him the tip to cut his tender; there was no other to

hand."

"The like of that, now, and me having the name of an honest man! Will I

have time enough to write a word or two with the stump of a pencil? I

have my tender in my pocket folded."

"Better let it alone; we'll keep Noakes off. He's still rattling along,

Bob; do we get the wind up the hill?"

"I'm afraid not. The road takes an awkward turn; just ahead there, you

see. We'll have to rely on the petrol, and trust to luck."

The yacht rounded the turn, and the hill came in view--a short sharp

spur about a quarter-mile in length. In a trice they dowsed the sails.

Templeton switched on the engine, intending to rush the incline. Looking

behind somewhat anxiously now, the Irishman declared that the green car

was barging on like a mad steam engine. Roaring like a furnace, it

seemed to leap over the ground, overhauling the yacht yard by yard until

it was three-parts up the hill. Then the clamour suddenly ceased.

"Begor, she's stopped," cried the Irishman, exultantly.

"Big ends dropped off," said Templeton, grinning at Eves over his

shoulder. "I gave him fair warning."

The yacht topped the crest. On the moor to the left a vast assemblage

of huts and tents broke upon the view. By the roadside was parked a row

of motor lorries. Here and there men were moving about. They stared

and shouted to one another at the sight of the strange vehicle sailing

towards them, or rather running now merrily on the last gill of petrol.

Templeton narrowly escaped colliding with the nearest lorry, then slowed

down and enquired the way to the commandant's office.

"You go in between them huts till you come to a swanky hut with a flag

flying atop," replied the private addressed. "A rum turn-out, this

here."

Driving on to the moor, Templeton was checked by the sentry, to whom,

however, the Irishman explained that he was Patrick O'Reilly, come to

tender for the camp waste.

"Pass: you'd better tender for the lot of us: we're all waste here,"

said the sentry. "Perhaps if you offered to buy us up they'd demob."

"I don't like that," said Templeton, gravely, as he drove on. "It's

subversive of discipline."

"Don't worry," said Eves with a smile. "He saluted all right. It's two

minutes to twelve: we did jolly well, old man."

Templeton drew up at the commandant's hut. O'Reilly sprang out, and

after a brief colloquy with the sentry, who looked doubtfully at his

bare head and touzled hair, was allowed to enter. In five minutes he

returned, in animated converse with the colonel. That officer,

acknowledging the punctilious salutes of Eves and Templeton, smiled at

the smutty face of the latter, and remarked:

"This is a queer contrivance of yours, my man. I thought Mr. O'Reilly

was a lunatic when he told me he'd arrived in a yacht, without being

sick, and himself a bad sailor----"

"I am that," put in O'Reilly, parenthetically. "I wouldn't like to say

how much the Irish Sea is owing me."

"But I see he's not so mad as I supposed," the colonel went on.

"Sure you'd be the better of a voyage in her yourself," said O'Reilly.

"Thank you. I think I prefer the real article. Not many of these

machines in the market, are there?"

"None, sir," replied Eves, promptly. "It's the first, a brand-new

invention of my friend Templeton here, second lieutenant in the

Blankshire Rifles. He's a repatriated prisoner of war, employing his

leave in working out ideas that germinated in captivity. That accounts

for his being improperly dressed."

"Indeed! Is this the Mr. Templeton who narrowly escaped gassing my old

friend Colonel Beavis?"

"A pure accident, sir, due to the colonel's adventurous spirit and a

loose screw. Templeton was very much cut up about it."

"Dry up!" growled Templeton in a fierce undertone.

"Well, I congratulate Mr. O'Reilly," said the colonel, his eyes

twinkling. "I gather that but for Mr. Templeton's road yacht he

wouldn't have got here till after twelve, and he seemed a little hurt

when I told him that a few minutes are neither here nor there. One must

give a time limit, of course; but I shouldn't have turned down a good

offer that happened to arrive a few minutes late. But what's this?"

A crowd of privates, shouting vociferously, was approaching from the

direction of the road. A few words were distinguishable in the babel.

"This way, governor." "Two to one on the long un." And as the throng

turned into the lane between the huts, among the khaki figures appeared

Philemon Noakes and his fur-coated companion, trotting along in feverish

haste. The soldiers fell back as they neared the commandant's hut, and

the two civilians advanced alone.

"Are you the colonel?" asked Noakes, panting.

"I am. You want to see me?"

"I'm the Mayor of Pudlington. This is my friend Ebenezer Saunders,

who's come for to tender for the camp waste."

"As per advertisement," added Saunders.

There was something aggressive in each man's manner of speech. The

colonel looked at his wrist watch.

"The time mentioned was twelve o'clock, gentlemen. It is now eight

minutes past. You are eight minutes too late."

"You won't draw the line so tight," said Noakes. "A few minutes are

neither here nor there in a matter of this sort, and as the Mayor of

Pudlington----

"Excuse me, Mr. Mayor----"

"But it's all along o' this infernal machine," cried Noakes, angrily,

throwing out his hand towards the road yacht. "It was on the wrong side

o' the road, and we couldn't pass it no-how; obstructing of the king's

highway: that's what it was; and as the Mayor of Pudlington I'll have

the law of them, that I will."

"Oh, come, Mr. Noakes," said Eves, pleasantly. "You tried that once

before, you know. You remember my friend Templeton, even if you've

forgotten me. As a matter of fact, sir," he added, turning to the

colonel, "they overdrove their car, and the big ends dropped off;

otherwise--well, I shouldn't have been surprised if there'd been a bit

of a scrap somewhere about the top of the hill."

"There would," said O'Reilly, decisively. "And what's more, it was the

car that blocked the road, and a mighty fine trouble we had, the way

we'd circumvent the creature."

"It's a scandal," cried Noakes.

"A regular low-down swindle," shouted the owner of the fur coat.

"That'll do, sir," said the colonel, sharply. "You'll be good enough to

leave the camp--you and the Mayor of Pudlington."

Noakes threw at Eves a venomous glance--a glance in which was

concentrated inextinguishable resentment for the unmasking he had

suffered two years before. He made his way with Saunders back to the

road and disappeared.

"There's more in this than meets the eye," said the colonel, smiling.

"Will you gentlemen come into my hut and tell me something more of the

Mayor of Pudlington?"

"With pleasure, sir," replied Eves. "Come along, Bob."

"Really, I must be getting back," said Templeton. "There's the garage,

you know. Besides----" He looked over his dirty overalls and grimy

hands.

"Well, you'll have to get some petrol; while you're doing that I'll

relate what I know of the life history of Noakes. A splendid rag, old

man," he added, as he turned to follow the colonel.

*THE COLD WATER CURE*

*I*

"We'll get some lunch at my digs," said Templeton, as he started with

Eves on the return journey. "I'll have time to show you one or two

ideas of mine before I am due back at the garage."

"Oh, I say, Bob, I'd made up my mind to stand you a topping lunch at

some hotel or other. Lunch at digs!"

Eves's look was eloquent. Templeton smiled gently.

"There's only one hotel, or rather inn," he said, "and there you can

only get Government beer. It has only domestic rations. Besides, you

don't know my landlady--she's a gem! She expects me, you know, and

she'll have enough for two."

"'A heart resigned, submissive, meek,'" Eves quoted. "Well, old sport,

I'll try to bear up, and as I've a tremendous appetite after hospital

slops, you know--just buck in, will you?"

The road being mainly down-hill, and the petrol tank now full, Templeton

had resolved to run back on engine power alone, and had furled the

sails. Just below the crest of the hill they passed the green car,

about which Noakes and his two companions were apparently engaged in a

heated altercation. Noakes scowled fiercely as the road yacht dashed

on.

"Rummy we should come across that old humbug!" said Eves. "Still

rummier that he should be Mayor of Pudlington. I thought the mayoralty

was the reward for long years of civic virtue. Old Noakes can't have

been here more than a couple of years. How is it you didn't know he was

mayor?"

"My dear man, I'm not interested in municipal affairs. Besides, I've

only been here a few weeks, and with only two months' leave----"

"Just so. Like the busy bee, you must improve each shining hour. That

bee must have been a frightful prig."

"Come, now----"

"No offence, old bean! Of course he gathered loads of honey, and all

that: a jolly useful life--adventurous, too--saw a lot of the world,

don't you know: always on the move. That part would suit me to a T.

We're both like the bee, you see: you in your industry, and what you may

call stickiness; me in my roving propensity, my incurable levity, my

passion for honeydew--in the form of cigarettes. I say, Bob, I think

I'll write for the magazines. I don't see why my ideas shouldn't be

worth something, as well as yours."

"What ideas?"

"That's an unkind cut, after I've been spouting ideas galore. I'm

afraid the mechanical mind will always be blind to the beauties of

literature. 'A primrose by the river's brim'--Steady, old sport, you

nearly capsized us!" Templeton had swung round suddenly into a by-lane.

"I was quoting a sublime passage from one William Wordsworth."

"Well, never mind him," said Templeton, drawing up in front of a

solitary cottage. "Here we are! Go straight up the stairs--you'll find

a clean towel. I'll tell Mrs. Pouncey you're here, and follow you."

When the two friends entered the little sitting-room a few minutes later

the landlady, a short, very stout, pleasant-faced woman of sixty or

thereabouts, had just placed two steaming plates of soup on the table.

"My friend Mr. Eves, Mrs. Pouncey," said Templeton.

"How d'ye do, Mrs. Pouncey?" said Eves, shaking hands. "Mr. Templeton

has been telling me you're the best cook in the three kingdoms. You

know you did, Bob; don't protest. He's very hard to please, Mrs.

Pouncey, very; and if he's satisfied, you may be sure that a man of my

humbler tastes will be absolutely bowled over."

"Well, now, I declare I wouldn't have thought it. Mr. Templeton have

never said a single grumble, not one. He's the best young man lodger as

I've ever had, that I will say--no trouble at all!"

"Ah, Mrs. Pouncey! how many young men lodgers have you said the same

thing about? Your last lodger, for instance, now, confess!"

"'Deed no, sir. You be very far out. My last lodger was--there, I

couldn't abide en, he was that cantankerous, and such language--I never

did! I know a real gentleman when I see en, and he was nothing but a

make-believe, for all his fur coat. Thankful I am he was only here a few

days, and that to oblige the mayor."

"Mr. Noakes?"

"Ay, sure, that be the mayor's name, and well I know it. But do 'ee

take your soup, now, 'twill be cold, and cold soup lays heavy, not to

speak o' the nastiness, and the pork chops grilled to a cinder."

The good woman had toddled away while speaking, and her last words came

faintly through the open door.

"Jolly good soup, Bob," said Eves. "And pork chops! Splendid! The old

dame is a treasure. I'll get her to tell us about our worthy mayor."

Mrs. Pouncey returned with two well-grilled pork chops and a dish of

sprouts and baked potatoes.

"Absolutely topping, Mrs. Pouncey!" said Eves. "What on earth did your

last lodger find to grumble at, if you treated him like this?"

"Lor' bless 'ee, sir, he'd grumble at everything, pertickler at the

bill. He'd want a penny took off here, and a penny there: and he would

measure out his tea hisself, and cut his own rashers. I never did see

the like."

"And a friend of the mayor, too!"

"Ay, and more'n a friend, so it do seem. 'Tis said here and there 'twas

a gentleman--gentleman, says I, but that's the talk!--a gentleman from

London as have Mr. Noakes in his pocket, so to speak it."

"Really!"

"Ay. No wonder you be mazed, the mayor being such a terrible great man

and all. Some folks do rise quick in the world, to be sure. 'Tis only

a matter of two year since he came here, from no one knowed where, and

'a took up a big contrack with the camp for building huts, and running a

canteen, I think they do call it, and I don't know what all. Ay sure,

he've his fingers in many a pie, but I warrant they'll get burnt, they

will!"

"But how did a stranger become mayor so quickly?"

"Why, being such a great man, they put him on the Council, and t'other

councillors being little small men, he got over 'em, that's what I say.

Bless 'ee, he'd have got 'em to make him king, if so be there was kings

out of London. Ah, he've a power of money! He bought this cottage that

I've paid rent for regular this twenty year, and he telled me he'd raise

the rent as soon as Parlyment will let him, if not before. And he made

me take this Saunders man for twenty shillings a week, when I've never

had less than twenty-five, never!"

Apple dumplings called Mrs. Pouncey from the room. When she returned

with them, and Eves wanted to know how the apples got inside the crust,

the dame gave a lengthy explanation which lasted till the conclusion of

the meal.

"We've a few minutes," said Templeton then. "Come and see my

road-sweeper."

He led Eves to an old shed at the rear of the premises. On entering,

Eves's eye was caught by a large formless mass of a substance somewhat

resembling putty.

"Hullo!" he cried. "Been playing with plasticine?"

"That's another little idea of mine," replied Templeton. "A new fire

extinguisher."

"You had better form a company, old sport. 'Bright Ideas, Unlimited.'

How's it work?"

"It's very simple. You let a shallow tank, about a quarter-inch deep,

into the ceiling of a room. The bottom, flush with the plaster, is

pierced with holes like a sieve, the holes are plugged with my

composition, and you run water into the tank. If a fire occurs the heat

melts the composition----"

"I see! Splendid! Down comes the rain and puts out the fire! But will

the shower last long enough?"

"Really, I'm surprised at you, Tom! The fall from a tank like that will

be equivalent to an average week's rainfall. But the point of the idea

is the composition. I've tried other preparations without success, but

this stuff of mine sets hard and yet melts easily. By varying the

proportions of the ingredients you can get it to melt at different

temperatures, but I haven't quite finished my experiments in that

direction. The difficulty is to gauge the exact temperature required,

but I'll manage it before long."

"It hasn't been tried yet in a building, then?"

"Not exactly; but a decent local builder was rather taken with it when I

showed it to him, and he's giving it a trial at the new Literary

Institute he's putting up. The building was stopped by the war, but he

has already started work again, and he's willing to test the idea before

the plasterers finish. He has rigged up a sort of tray on the laths in

the roof of the big room, and one of these days is going to put a

brazier underneath. You see, if the stuff melts too easily, it will only

mean a slop on the floor, and won't do any damage."

"I see. What are you going to call the stuff?"

"Time enough for that when I've perfected the invention and sent in for

my patent. Here's my road-sweeper."

He pointed to a somewhat rusty vehicle standing against one of the

walls.

"I'm only waiting for a supply of petrol to try it," he added. "The old

engine uses up a frightful lot. But our allowance is due in to-morrow.

I say, can you stay a day or two? Mrs. Pouncey can put you up."

"Rather! I've got ten days' leave."

"That's all right, then. Now we had better get back to the garage.

Wilkins will be in a bait if it's not open sharp at two."

*II*

As Templeton drew up in front of the garage, a bill-sticker was posting

a bill on one of the side posts of the gate. The heading, hi large

type, caught Eves's eye, and when he got down to open the gate, he

stayed to read the announcement while Templeton drove through.

"I say, Bob, there'll be a splendid rag to-morrow," he said on rejoining

his friend. "There's a meeting of parliamentary electors at the new

Literary Institute--a final kick before the election on Saturday. Old

Noakes is in the chair: he's a pacifist, you remember, and the bill

gives short notice that the meeting will be addressed by----" (He

mentioned the name of a notorious agitator.) "We'll go. Ask a few

questions, perhaps."

"Soldiers in uniform are forbidden to----"

"Rats! That's all gone by the board. The soldier's a citizen

now-a-days.... I say, is this Wilkins?"

"My employer," replied Templeton.

A thick-set man wearing a long coat and a motor cap was coming up the

path.

"Well, any business a-doing?" he asked of Templeton.

"There have been two callers: one was a man who'd over-driven his

machine and run short of oil. He was in a tearing hurry, and distinctly

offensive. I did what I could for him, and warned him he'd lose his big

ends if he wasn't careful. Here's the half-crown he paid me."

"Half-a-crown! No more than that?"

"Well, he paid what I asked."

"Rot it all! You didn't ask enough. A feller in a hurry, and likewise

rude, ought to be made to pay. Look 'ee here, Mr. Templeton, you're a

young feller, and have got a thing or two to learn: you'd best get a

notion of charging if you're to be of any use to me."

"What about that, then?" asked Templeton, handing him a couple of pound

notes.

"Ah, now, that's better, to be sure! How did 'ee get 'em?" asked

Wilkins, pocketing the notes with a pleased smile.

"An Irishman wanted to get to the camp in a hurry. He happened to be

polite, so I drove him up in my road yacht. As a matter of fact, we

passed the other fellow in his car: he had picked up your mayor, and I

gathered he was a business rival of the Irishman. I wasn't sorry we

beat him; his big ends dropped off, as I warned him."

Eves noticed that Wilkins's face grew more and more glum as Templeton

was speaking, and remembered the telephone call he had answered.

"The Irishman was so pleased that he offered me five pounds," Templeton

went on, "but I thought two pounds was a fair charge."

"Then dang me if you ain't done me out of three pounds!" cried the man,

irritably. "Did any one ever hear the likes of refusing good money when

'twas offered free? Done me out of three pounds--_three_ pounds, look

'ee, as ought to have been in my pocket! Done me out of it, you have!"

Eves felt that this outburst was not wholly due to Templeton's

moderation in charging.

"Well, Mr. Wilkins," said Templeton, quietly, "I'm sorry you're not

satisfied. Perhaps we had better part."

"I don't say that," said Wilkins, calming himself with an effort.

"You're a gentleman, that's where 'tis, and not bred up to understand

business. I'll say no more--let it bide--but another time don't 'ee go

and refuse good money; that's business. Well, I'm off up along to the

town; know where I can get some petrol on the quiet; that's business

too. I'll be back afore long."

"You keep queer company, old man!" said Eves, when Wilkins was out of

ear-shot.

"He's trying at times, I confess--a rough diamond," said Templeton.

"But I think he's sound."

"I wonder! Somebody wanted him to give Noakes a tip, you remember. He

must be very well in with Noakes, and that's suspicious in itself. His

face was as long as a fiddle when you told him O'Reilly got in ahead of

Noakes."

"Well, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Now, I've got to make a

new crank pin for a motor cycle that was brought in for repair this

morning. It'll take me some time, and I don't want to keep you hanging

about. Why not go into the town and have a look round?"

"Righto. What time do you knock off?"

"Five."

"I'll call for you, then. So long!"

At half-past four, when Eves returned, the workshop was lighted by the

two oil lamps which were its only illumination. Templeton had just

finished his work, and was washing his hands at the sink.

"I've spent a profitable afternoon," said Eves, returning to his seat on

the bench. "Don't think much of Pudlington, but an enquiring mind like

mine can pick up pearls anywhere. I was strolling along when I came to

an uncommonly ugly unfinished building, with 'Literary Institute' carved

over the door. Some fellows were unloading chairs from a cart, and

carrying them in. I went in too, and found your respectable friend the

local builder there, superintending the fitting of some gas-burners.

'Getting ready for the meeting to-morrow?' I said to him. 'Ay, sure,

sir,' said he. 'Town Hall's occypied by Food Controller and Fuel

Controller, and I don't know what all, so the meeting's to be held here,

though unfinished.' 'Rather a cold place,' I said. 'Bless 'ee, we'll

hot 'em up to-morrow,' said he. 'The walls will sweat like you never

see. We've got a proper fine furnace down underneath, and the only pity

is I haven't got the ceiling plastered; 'twould have dried a bit.'

Whereupon I mentioned your proposed experiment with your fire

extinguisher, and the old boy became cordial at once when I told him you

were a friend of mine. You've evidently impressed him, Bob."

Templeton grunted.

"It's quite true. To be a friend of yours lifts one a good many

notches. 'That young gemman do have a terrible powerful piece of

intelleck inside of his brain-pan,' says your builder. 'Ay, and what's

more, he's a rare earnest soul, always inventing things for the good of

his day and generation. He's a credit to the nation, that he be!' Of

course I congratulated him and Pudlington on the temporary possession of

so bright an ornament, and we had quite a friendly talk. He seemed

rather doubtful whether it's legal to hold a public meeting in a

building before it has been passed by the surveyor, but Noakes is above

the law, or thinks he is. We'll go to-morrow, Bob: it'll be a good

rag."

"I'm not sure that I want to go to the meeting," said Templeton.

"Oh, you must! I want to see Noakes's face when he spies us in the

audience. By the way, I think he must be rather thick with your

Wilkins. Not many minutes after I'd left the Institute I met the green

car being towed along by two great farm horses. Noakes and Saunders were

walking alongside. Noakes gave me his usual scowl as he passed, which I

countered with my usual grin. Presently I walked round to the

market-place, and there was Noakes again, in close confab with Wilkins.

When they saw me they both began to talk at once, and it seemed to me

that each was telling the other that he had the honour of my

acquaintance. At any rate they both looked rather surprised and a good

deal more than interested, and their heads were very close together when

I saw them last."

"I'm sick of Noakes," said Templeton, somewhat irritably.

"What's the matter? Has he been here?"

"No, but half an hour after you left, Wilkins came back with a can of

petrol, and offered it to me for my experiments in a way that was

positively fawning."

"To make amends for his roughness before."

"I don't like that sort of thing. It's too much Noakes's way, and what

you say throws light on it. If he and Noakes are pals--well, when I

wangle, even if it's petrol, I like to do it in decent company. I

disliked Wilkins's manner so much that I declined the petrol: told him

I'd wait for the regular supply. The odd thing is that Noakes has not

been here at the shop in my time."

"Rather lucky for you, for if he'd found you here, he would have told

Wilkins you're a dangerous character, and got you fired out. He may do

that yet."

"Well, let's get along home. Mrs. Pouncey will have high tea ready, and

I'm ravenous."

After their meal, which was tea and supper combined, they smoked for an

hour in the sitting-room. Then Templeton jumped up.

"Botheration!" he exclaimed. "I was going to work on my turbine

specification, but I've left it in a drawer at the shop. I shall have

to pull on my boots again and fetch it."

"Can't it wait? It's a horrid night."

"I really can't waste a whole evening. My time's getting short, and I've

lots still to do."

"Well, I'll come along with you. After supper walk a mile, you know.

It's about a mile there and back, I suppose."

The night was damp and murky. The country lane was unlit, and they

found their way by intermittent flashes of Templeton's electric torch.

There was no dwelling between Mrs. Pouncey's cottage and the garage, and

at this hour, half-past eight on a winter night, they were not likely to

meet either pedestrians or vehicles. So much the greater, therefore,

was Templeton's surprise, when, on approaching the spot where the garage

and workshop stood, he saw a dim light through the window of the latter.

"Wilkins went off at half-past three, and said he wouldn't be back

to-night," said Templeton. "I suppose he changed his mind."

To reach the door they had to pass the window. It was only natural that

Eves, who was on the inside, should glance in. Catching Templeton by the

arm, he drew him back out of the rays of the lamp-light, whispering:

"There's some one stooping at a drawer, trying a key, apparently.

Couldn't see his face, the light's too dim."

"It's Wilkins, I expect. No one else has any right here," replied

Templeton. "I'll take a look."

Peeping round the frame of the window, through the dirty pane, he was

able to distinguish nothing but a man's form at the further end of the

shop. The lamp, hanging from the middle of the roof, was turned very

low, and the bent attitude of the man, with his back three-parts towards

the window, rendered it impossible to discern his features. He was

covered with a long waterproof, and a storm cap was pulled low over his

head. From his movements it was clear that he was trying one key after

another.

"It's not Wilkins," whispered Templeton. "I never saw him dressed like

that."

"Then it's a burglar," replied Eves. "Nab him!"

They moved on tip-toe to the door. Templeton grasped the handle,

murmuring:

"I'll turn it suddenly--then make a dash!"

There was absolute quiet all around, and the sound of jingling keys came

faintly through the door. After a few moments' pause Templeton turned

the handle noiselessly, and pushed the door open. The damp weather had,

however, swollen the timber, and the slight sound it made as it strained

against the door-post attracted the attention of the man beyond. Still

stooping over the drawer, he turned his head sharply.

"My hat! Noakes!" muttered Eves.

Springing into the shop past Templeton, who had halted on recognising

Noakes, as if to consider matters, Eves dashed at the waterproofed

figure. The moment's warning had enabled Noakes to prepare for attack.

He projected a bony shoulder, prevented Eves from getting the clutch he

intended, and made a rush towards the door.

"Collar him, Bob!" cried Eves.

During the next minute there was a rough-and-tumble in which Noakes's

legs played as free a part as was possible to a man encased in a long

waterproof. He displayed astounding agility in evading close action,

and it was not until Eves caught him by the heel as he kicked out that

he was brought to the ground. "I'll sit on him," said Eves. "Ring up

the police station, Bob, and ask them to send a constable to arrest a

burglar."

"But are you sure--" Templeton began.

"Don't argue," said Eves. "He's a desperate character; I can hardly

hold him."

Templeton went to the telephone, lifted the receiver, then turned again

towards Eves.

"Don't you think, as it's Mr. Noakes----" he said.

"Mr. Noakes! The Mayor of Pudlington?" interrupted Eves. "Picking

locks! Nonsense! Ring up at once, Bob, and then come and help: the

ruffian will be too much for me, just out of hospital."

Templeton gave the message.

"They'll send a man at once. He'll be here in about ten minutes," he

reported. "Are you sure it isn't Mr. Noakes? I could have sworn I

recognised him."

"So I am--so I am," panted the prisoner, who had hitherto struggled in

silence. "What the Turk do 'ee mean by assaulting me--murderous

assault--Mayor of Pudlington?"

"Now, now, don't be rash!" said Eves. "You won't make matters any better

by pretending to be our worthy mayor. He won't like that, you know,

when you're brought into court to-morrow. I shall have to give

evidence, and when I tell him that the fellow caught rifling a drawer

took his name in vain----"

"But I be the mayor--Philemon Noakes; and I'll send you to jail for

assault and battery, without the option of a fine. Let me go! I'm the

mayor, I tell 'ee!"

"I really think he's telling the truth," said Templeton.

Just then Noakes, kicking out, dealt Templeton a heavy blow on the

ankle.

"You had better lie still, whoever you are!" said the latter, warmly.

"Violence won't help you!"

"Of course not--only makes things ten times worse!" said Eves. "Catch

his legs, Bob; if he isn't quiet we'll have to truss him up. I never

came across such an impudent scoundrel. Here's a burglar, caught in the

act, claiming to be the chief magistrate! That beats everything! How's

it possible? I say, Bob, there'll be a queer scene in court to-morrow.

Suppose it were true, I can't for the life of me see how the mayor on

the bench and the criminal in the dock are going to arrange matters.

Will he hop from one to the other, and finally sentence himself? That's

a Jekyll and Hyde problem I can't solve. But here's somebody

coming--the bobby, I expect."

Through the half-open door came a policeman, with handcuffs hanging from

his wrists.

"Here he is, constable!" said Eves. "He's been struggling, but I dare

say he'll go quietly."

"Now then, there," said the constable, "get up and come along quiet.

We've been looking for you a month past. Who gives him in charge?"

"I do," said Eves, "though I suppose Mr. Templeton ought to do it. You

know Mr. Templeton, constable? Temporary assistant to Mr. Wilkins."

"Ay, sure, I've seed the gentleman." Noakes had now risen, and stood

before the constable, Eves on one side, Templeton on the other. His

face, hitherto in shade, had come within the rays of the dim lamp.

"Daze me!" said the constable, after a hard stare. "Surely--ay, 'tis

the mayor, with the beginning of a black eye!"

[Illustration: "'DAZE ME!' SAID THE CONSTABLE. 'SURELY--AY, 'TIS THE

MAYOR.'"]

"Of course I'm the mayor!" said Noakes, truculently. "These young

ruffians have assaulted me. I give them in charge, Brown."

"That's cool!" said Eves. "Don't pay any attention to him, constable.

He's mad, or intoxicated. Mr. Templeton had occasion to come back to

the shop, and we found this fellow in the act of trying to open a drawer

where Mr. Templeton keeps important papers. He got a bit ruffled, of

course. He says he's the mayor, but is that likely? Take him to the

station, constable: we'll give the superintendent the facts."

"He's the mayor, or his double," said the constable. "And as to

arresting the mayor----"

"Don't be a fool, Brown," said Noakes. "It's all a mistake--and a

mistake that'll cost these young ruffians dear. I came here to see

Wilkins, and afore I could get a word out, they knocked me down and nigh

squeezed the breath out of me."

"And Wilkins knows that you open his drawers in his absence?" said Eves.

"Are these your keys, Bob, or Wilkins's?"

He held up the bunch of keys which Noakes had dropped.

"Neither," said Templeton. "Mine are in my pocket: Mr. Wilkins no doubt

has his."

"Well, jown me if I know what to do!" said the constable. "You'd better

all come along and charge each other, seems to me!"

"What's all this?" said a voice at the door.

Wilkins entered breathlessly.

"They rang me up from the station, and told me there was burglars in my

shop. Where be they? Mr. Noakes, what have been going on? What have

come to your eye?"

"You may well ask, Wilkins. I came to have a word with you about that

estimate, you know----" Wilkins tried to look as if he knew--"and these

fellows, one an assistant of yours, I understand, set on me and half

murdered me--took me for a burglar, ha! ha!"

"He was trying his keys on this drawer, Mr. Wilkins," said Eves.

"And why not?" demanded Wilkins, indignantly. "Why not, I ask 'ee?

'Tis my drawer, I keep my papers there, and Mr. Noakes having come to

see me about an estimate, of course he saves time and gets the estimate

out ready."

"And Brown will take 'em in charge for an unprovoked assault," said

Noakes.

"Well, now, Mr. Noakes," said Wilkins, soothingly, "I wouldn't go so far

as that. Not if it was me. It do seem 'twas a mistake. They took 'ee

for a burglar--a nat'ral mistake, that's what it was, and my advice to

one and all is, let it bide and say no more about it. We don't want no

newspapers getting a hold of things like this. Won't do none of us no

good--that's what I say."

Eves was loth to let Noakes go scot free, but after a whispered

consultation with Templeton, who pointed out the improbability of any

magistrate being induced to believe, in face of Wilkins's explanation,

that the mayor was a burglar, he grudgingly agreed to withdraw the

charge. Templeton took the precaution of removing all his own papers

from the drawer, and leaving Noakes with Wilkins, returned with Eves to

Mrs. Pouncey's cottage.

"So much for your rough diamond!" said Eves. "Noakes evidently didn't

know before to-day that you were here, and when I saw him confabbing

with Wilkins he was no doubt asking all about you. Wilkins must have

told him about your inventions, and he thought a visit to your drawer

would give him an idea or two, and enable him to get in first with a

patent."

"But you don't suppose Wilkins was in the plot?"

"I don't know about that, but he's clearly under Noakes's thumb. Some

one said that you know a man by the company he keeps. Wilkins keeps

uncommonly bad company."

"I'm disappointed in him, I confess," said Templeton. "To-morrow I'll

give him a week's notice, and work on my own for the rest of my leave."

*III*

Next morning Templeton, after breakfast, went to the workshop as usual,

leaving Eves to his own devices until lunch-time. Eves spent an hour

pottering about in the shed, and was particularly interested in the fire

extinguishing composition.

"Rummy old sport!" he thought. "I suppose he will strike something

really good one of these days, and be a bloated millionaire while I'm

pinching on a miserable pension. Wonder what temperature this stuff

melts at, by the way."

He found, standing against the wall, a metal tray pierced with holes

which had been plugged with the composition. A thermometer hung on a

nail.

"Hanged if I don't experiment on my own account!" he thought.

He filled the tray with water from the pump in Mrs. Pouncey's garden,

laid it on an iron tripod which he found in the shed, and obtaining some

firewood and coke from Mrs. Pouncey, kindled a small fire in an iron

brazier. This he put underneath the tray, hanging the thermometer from

the tripod. In a few minutes a sizzling informed him that water was

trickling through the holes, and lifting the thermometer, he discovered

that it registered 76 deg..

"By George! What a rag!" he exclaimed. "I wonder if it can be done!

Mustn't tell Bob, though!"

He put out the fire, emptied the brazier and the tray, replugged the

holes and removed all traces of his experiment. Then he walked into the

town, and made his way to the Literary Institute.

"Good morning, Mr. Johnson," he said to the builder, whom he found

reading a newspaper in the large hall, and smiling broadly. "You've got

all ready for to-night, I see. How many will the place hold?"

"Two hundred and fifty, or thereabouts," said the builder.

"That's about the whole able-bodied population of Pudlington, isn't it?"

"Why no, sir, not with the women folk. They've got votes now-a-days, and

there be more women voters than men, seemingly. Have 'ee seen the

_Echo_, sir?"

"Your local rag? Anything in it?"

"A rare bit o' news that you won't see every week. Look 'ee here."

He handed the _Pudlington Echo_ to Eves, pointing to a paragraph headed

with large type.

"MISTAKEN FOR A BURGLAR

"AMAZING EXPERIENCE OF THE MAYOR

"Our worthy mayor was involved in an awkward predicament last night. In

pursuance of an appointment with Mr. Wilkins, of the British Motor

Garage, he arrived at the workshop between eight and nine o'clock, and

was awaiting the proprietor, when he was suddenly seized and thrown down

by a young man in the uniform of a second lieutenant, who had come up in

company with Mr. Wilkins's assistant, and, not familiar with the mayor's

lineaments, had mistaken him for a burglar. The police were telephoned

for, and Constable Brown, on reaching the scene, found himself in an

unenviable position, between cross-charges of burglary and common

assault. The tension was relieved by the arrival of Mr. Wilkins, who

saw at once that a pardonable mistake had been made by his assistant and

the young officer, and by the exercise of his accustomed tact succeeded

in bringing both parties to an amicable understanding. We have

unfortunately to record that in the regrettable fracas our mayor

sustained an ocular abrasion, the consequences of which, while

temporarily disfiguring, will, we trust, be otherwise negligible. As a

comparative newcomer Mr. Noakes may not be aware that he is in good

company. Those familiar with the chronicles of our ancient borough will

remember the historic bout between Ted Sloggins and Jemmy Wild, the

prizefighter once Mayor of Pudlington, when the latter was knocked out

in the tenth round with two broken ribs and a black eye."

"That's a nasty one!" said Eves, returning the paper.

"That last bit, sir? True, I feel it so--very nasty indeed. That

feller have got his knife into the mayor, in a sly sort of way."

"Mr. Noakes isn't very popular, then? The local paper would hardly give

a dig at a popular mayor."

"Well, sir, to tell 'ee the truth, there's two parties, one for and one

against. Mr. Noakes is almost a newcomer, and some folks don't take

kindly to his pushing ways. I don't myself, I own it. He's near driven

me off my head over this meeting, and though I'd do anything in the way

of business, I don't hold with his views. He was one of they 'Stop the

War' kidney, and though goodness knows I'd 'a stopped the war, having a

son over in France, I wouldn't stop it a moment afore we'd done what we

set out to do, and thankful I am our lads have done it. That there

young officer last night"--he smiled--"was you, I take it, sir."

"The curtain's dropped over that, Mr. Johnson," said Eves. "By the way,

you were going to try Mr. Templeton's new fire extinguisher. Have you

rigged up the apparatus?"

"Ay, sure, 'tis all ready. Come up along, and I'll show 'ee. I'll try

it next week, just afore I plaster the ceiling."

He took Eves to the floor above, and showed him, between the workmen's

planks and the matchboard, a large shallow tank of sheet iron resting on

the rafters. It was filled with water, and the builder explained that

the holes in the bottom had been plugged with the composition a week

before.

"Most ingenious," said Eves, making a mental note of the position of the

tank. "If it answers, I suppose you will make a tank to cover the whole

of the ceiling."

"Surely, and put it into every house, hall or church I build."

"Johnson, where are you?" came a call from below.

"'Tis Mr. Noakes himself, come to bother me again!" said Johnson in an

undertone. Aloud he cried: "Coming, Mr. Noakes, coming! ... Belike

you'll bide here a bit," he added with a smile.

"I'm not keen on meeting your worthy mayor," replied Eves. "I'll come

down when he's gone."

Through the matchboard Eves clearly heard the conversation between the

two men.

"Look 'ee here, Johnson," began Noakes, irritably, "this won't do. The

place is as cold as an ice-house, and my orders was to heat en well.

Folks won't be no good listening to speeches if they're all of a

shiver."

"Why, bless 'ee, Mr. Noakes, 'tis only ten o'clock. There's plenty of

time to get the room comfortable warm by seven. The furnace is going,

and you don't want the place like a greenhouse, do 'ee? Folks 'ud all

drop asleep."

"There's a medium, Johnson. I count on you to regulate the furnace so's

we're cosy-like. 'Tis a raw morning, and 'twill be worse to-night.

Keep the furnace going steady, and come four o'clock shet all the

winders to keep out the night air."

"But what about ventilation? If so be there's a good audience you'll

have women fainting, and I don't know what all."

"There'll be plenty of ventilation through the matchboard," said Noakes,

looking upward. "Besides, we've always the winders to cool the air if

need be, but if you ain't got a good fire--why there you are! See that

my orders are carried out, Johnson."

"Very good. You shall have it like an oven if you like: 'tis not for me

to say."

Noakes, whose face suggested the recent application of a beefsteak,

inspected the rows of chairs, mounted the platform and re-arranged the

table, scolded the charwoman who had left her dust-pan on the chairman's

seat, and finally departed. Then Eves rejoined the builder.

"They'll be warm afore they gets to work," said the latter, smiling,

"And if so be there's any opposition, I won't say but what tempers 'll

rise to biling point. However!"

"A queer man, your mayor!" said Eves. "By the way, I'd like to have a

look at your furnace."

"Surely, sir. Come wi' me."

He led Eves into the basement, where a young man in shirt-sleeves was

stoking the fire.

"I'll have to keep 'ee to-night, Fred," said the builder, "and sorry I

be to say it, but the mayor's just been talking to me, and wants the

place hotted up. You must stay till eight, my lad, and leave a good

fire when you go: there's no telling how long the speechifying will

last; these 'lection meetings are that uncertain."

The stoker brushed his arm across his damp brow, and muttered something

uncomplimentary of the mayor. Johnson expounded to Eves the merits of

his heating system, and followed him up the stairs again.

"The mayor's a busy man just now," said Eves. "Isn't there some sort of

a ceremony coming on?"

"Ay, so 'tis, a ceremony that's come down from very ancient days, very

ancient indeed, when we was all heathens, so it seems. 'Tis the

anointing of the British Stone, they do call it, a rare old block of

granite all by itself in a field some way north o' the town. Nobody

knows how it come there, but 'tis said there was a battle on the spot, I

don't know how many hundred years ago, and a whole cemetery of bones

down below. Whatever the truth is, the mayor and corporation marches

out in full rig once a year, and the mayor breaks a bottle o' cider, the

wine o' the country, atop of the stone. I say 'tis just an excuse for a

randy, for they make a sort of fair o't, wi' stalls and merry-go-rounds,

and I don't know what all. There won't be so much fun as usual this

year, though, owing to shortage of sugar for sweets and cakes and such.

Still, maybe 'twill be worth your seeing, being so ancient."

"Rather! I'm tremendously keen on rags, ancient or modern. I'll be

there!"

Eves bade the builder good-bye at the door of the hall, and the latter

went up the street to his office. As soon as his back was turned, Eves

hastened below to the furnace room.

"Pretty thirsty work, isn't it?" he said to the man. "I don't wonder

you're not keen to be kept so long at it."

"'Tisn't that, sir," said the stoker. "The truth o't is I was going to

take my girl to the cinema to-night. It begins at seven, and she'll be

in a taking, 'cos they're showing some war pictures, and I'm in one of

'em, and she's mad on seeing me, though I tell her I ain't doing

nothing, only looking down my nose at a blooming Hun prisoner."

"Naturally she wants to see you, and squeeze your hand, and--you know.

I should myself. Well, I'll tell you what. I'll come about 6.45 and

release you."

The man stared.

"I mean it, no kid," Eves went on. "I intended coming to the meeting,

but there'll be nothing very interesting until half time, and the

stoking will be finished by then."

"But you'll mess your clothes, sir, not to speak of your hands."

"Oh, no! I'll see to that. Besides, you know, we didn't fret ourselves

about dirt in the trenches. That's all right, then, and look here--get

your young woman a box of chocolates, a pound box--all one price, four

shillings. She'll like your picture all the more."

He handed the man a couple of half-crowns, cut short his effusive

thanks, and made his way back to the cottage.

"Bob come home, Mrs. Pouncey?" he asked the old dame.

"Not yet, sir, and I do hope he won't be late, for I've got as tender a

loin of young pig as ever I've roasted."

"Capital! I'm ravenous, I always am. It's a disease, Mrs. Pouncey.

Don't I show it in my face?"

"Bless your heart, sir, your face does me good: it do look so happy!"

"Happy thoughts, old dear. I've had a particularly happy thought all

the morning, and it shines out on my ingenuous countenance. Some folks

never show anything, you know. My friend Templeton, now--ah! here he

is! Roast pork, Bob--hurry up!"

*IV*

After early supper that evening, Eves and Templeton, giving each an arm

to Mrs. Pouncey, set off for the Literary Institute. The good woman was

greatly excited at the prospect of giving her vote for the first time

next day, and had announced her intention of voting for "the gentleman,"

whereupon Eves had reproached her, with well-assumed severity.

"That is not the right spirit, I am sure of it," he said. "You are

going to exercise for the first time the priceless privilege, or right,

or duty, of the franchise: a most solemn responsibility, Mrs. Pouncey.

Yet you have made up your mind to vote for 'the gentleman' without

considering what views he professes, and without hearing the other side,

which may be one of Nature's gentlemen."

"I like 'em best bred, same as pig," said Mrs. Pouncey, stoutly.

"I don't dispute your taste," returned Eves, "but I think you owe it to

the principle of fair play at least to hear what the other fellow may

have to say. This is your last chance: to-morrow is the fatal day: like

the man in the poem, you must make up your mind between truth and

falsehood, 'twixt the good and evil side."

"Oh! how you do talk, Mr. Eves!" said Mrs. Pouncey. "I'll go, then, to

please you, and I hope as I shan't be sorry for it."

"I don't think you will; in fact I think you will have quite a pleasant

entertainment. Mr. Noakes has insisted on the hall being warm and

cosy-like, and the chairs are quite good. I'll find you a good place at

the back of the hall."

"Not too far back, then, for my hearing bain't what it was."

"But your eyes are good--wonderfully good for a lady of forty or so.

You shall sit where you can hear--and see--everything."

Templeton had privately taken Eves to task for persuading the old dame

to venture out on a cold night; but Eves had only chuckled.

The young officers were both in mufti, Eves having borrowed an old suit

from his friend.

It was twenty minutes to seven when they reached the hall. The first

few rows of chairs were already occupied, and people were streaming in.

Eves piloted Mrs. Pouncey to a seat in the middle of the sixth row from

the back wall.

"It do be warmish, to be sure," she said, removing her tippet.

"Thanks to the mayor! Bob, look after Mrs. Pouncey. I'll be back

presently."

He dodged his way through the incoming stream, and disappeared.

Templeton sat beside Mrs. Pouncey, looking around the audience with an

air of mild interest, and quite unconscious that the good lady was

basking in the glory reflected upon her by the companionship of the

"young feller as had his name in the paper." She nodded and smiled at

her friends and acquaintances, and bridled visibly when she saw heads

put together, nods in her direction, curious glances at Templeton, and

lips whispering into ready ears.

The hall gradually filled. Tradesmen of the town, farmers from the

outskirts, a sprinkling of khaki, and a considerable number of women,

occupied all the chairs, and overflowed into the aisles along the walls.

Conversation buzzed; the broad Doric of the county mingled quaintly with

the north-country burr and the cockney twang of the soldiers whom chance

had camped in the neighbourhood.

"Where be Mr. Eves, I wonder?" said Mrs. Pouncey, presently. She was in

truth disappointed. "Mr. Templeton was a nice young gentleman, to be

sure" (so she afterwards confided to a gossip), "but he was that

quiet--well, you didn't like to speak to him promiscous-like, for fear

you spoiled the high thoughts a-rooting in his mind. But that Mr. Eves,

now--well, you weren't afeared of high thoughts with him. He was a

merry feller, that he was, full of his fun; and talk--my dear, you

should have heard him; 'twas just as if you poured out a kettle till it

run dry, and the most beautiful long words, I do assure 'ee."

"Where be Mr. Eves, I wonder?"

The question roused Templeton from his abstracted scrutiny of the

audience. He glanced at his watch; it was two minutes to seven. Some

of the soldiers were already stamping their feet and calling "Time!" He

looked up and down the hall, along the walls, into the doorway. Eves

was not to be seen. A misgiving seized him. Eves had been very keen on

coming to this meeting. Was he contemplating a "rag"? The idea made

Templeton perspire.

An outburst of cheers and clapping of hands drew his attention from his

uneasy thoughts. The platform party had arrived. Noakes, wearing his

chain of office, stepped first on to the platform. He was followed by a

lean, hungry-looking man with fiery eyes, clean-shaven, his reddish hair

brushed up from the scalp. Templeton recognised the features of a

fanatical agitator whose portrait had appeared in the picture papers.

The local Labour candidate, a burly fellow with a jolly red face and

closely trimmed beard, took his seat beside the speaker of the evening,

and the remaining chairs on the platform were occupied by his principal

supporters, male and female.

The cheers subsided, and the mayor rose. In the silence a high-pitched

voice enquired from the rear of the hall, "Who said burglar?" Some of

the audience laughed, some cried "Shame!" and a shrill cry of "It wasn't

me!" and a scuffle announced that the chucker-out had proved more than

equal to the occasion. Noakes smiled blandly until the noise had

ceased: then he began.

"Ladies and gentlemen."

But there is no need to report his opening speech, which indeed was

unusually brief for a chairman's. Templeton had begun to think better

of him, until, after announcing that he would not stand between the

audience and their great comrade from London, he said that, when the

speech of the evening was finished, he would venture to make a few

remarks by way of applying its principles to local circumstances. He

then introduced his friend and comrade, and sat down.

Nor is it worth while, perhaps, to follow the "comrade from London"

through his hour's declamation. "The fellow could speak," said

Templeton, afterwards, "and what he said wasn't all rot. But it was

full of the most hopelessly unpractical ideas, streaked with a vein of

bitterness against every thing and every body, and absolutely vitiated

for me by the assumption that every rich man is a knave, and every poor

man a martyr. Noakes ought to have let well alone, but he tried to dot

the i's and simply provoked Eves's question. If he had closed the

meeting after the big speech, there'd have been no trouble."

Whether it was that the bucolic mind moved too slowly to keep pace with

the orator's flying periods, or that the townsmen from London and the

North were spell-bound by his fervid eloquence, or simply that the

growing heat of the hall induced lethargy; certain it is that the

meeting was quite orderly and decorous during the great speech. Not

until the chairman was again on his feet did trouble arise, and that was

due to a simple question put by Eves. But we must go back a little.

When Eves descended into the furnace room, and released the stoker, he

stripped off coat, waistcoat and collar, rolled up his shirt-sleeves,

and started energetically upon his self-assumed task. Hardly two

minutes had elapsed when he heard a rasping voice behind him.

"That's the way. Keep it going steady, my man. There's a thermometer

on the wall just inside the hall; run up every now and again and take a

look at it: never let it drop below 60 deg.."

"Ay sure," said Eves, counterfeiting the local brogue, and Noakes, who

had been standing on the bottom step, went away gratified that his

orders were being carried out so well.

"Not below 60 deg.!" said Eves under his breath. "Sixteen degrees to

go! Well, it's a long, long way to Tipperary, but my heart is _there_!"

And he ladled coal and coke into the furnace with the fresh enthusiasm

of an amateur.

It occurred to him that if he was to slip up into the hall for the

purpose of examining the thermometer it would be just as well to look

the part he was playing. So he smeared his face and arms, and what was

visible of his shirt, with coal dust, much assisted by the dampness of

his perspiring skin.

He paid his first visit to the thermometer just as the meeting opened.

It hung on the wall near a group of Tommies who had been unable to

obtain seats. They eyed him with a certain humorous sympathy. The

thermometer registered 62 deg..

During the hour-long oration Eves was up and down several times, noting

with satisfaction that the mercury was steadily rising, yet a little

doubtful whether it would reach the critical point before the close of

the meeting. He noticed towards the end of the hour that the heat was

telling on some members of the audience. Women were fanning themselves;

two or three plethoric farmers had fallen asleep: all the Tommies had

unbuttoned their tunics. "Some fug, mate!" one of them remarked in a

stage whisper. Eves only smiled in answer; he had seen that the mercury

now touched 74 deg., and having stoked up the furnace to its full

capacity, was satisfied that he could do no more, and stood among the

soldiers.

The great speech ended in wild and whirling words: the speaker sat down

amid applause, and Noakes arose.

"Now, my friends, we've heard a terrible fine speech, that we have, and

I agree with every word of it. Afore I call upon our candidate--he'll

be our member to-morrow--to propose a vote of thanks to our comrade,

I've a thing or two to say for to bring it home to the hearts o' the men

and women o' Pudlington. Capitalism, as he truly said, is the deadly

poison as is driving a nail into the roots o' the nation: I couldn't say

better nor that. Well, then, neighbours all, what I do say is, don't

'ee go and vote for no capitalist as belongs to a covey of profiteers,

birds of prey as peck out the vitals o' the widder and the orphan. Ah,

neighbours! my heart bleeds as I think o' the poor lone widder woman as

pays dear for her bread, and can't get no cheese, scraping to pay the

rate collector as he----"

"Who raised Widow Pouncey's rent?" came a clear voice from the back of

the hall.

The mayor paused, and cast a swift glance in the direction of the

questioner. He had recognised the voice, and sought for that

well-remembered figure in officer's khaki. The somnolent audience was

roused, every head was turned, many people had risen from their seats.

Mrs. Pouncey, who had been dozing, her head constantly wobbling over

towards Templeton's shoulder, suddenly sat erect, and exclaimed with a

cry of delight: "That's Mr. Eves at last, bless him!" Eves himself,

having launched his question, and ascertained that the mercury stood at

75 deg., turned with a smile towards the eager Tommies who wanted to

know all about Widow Pouncey.

Noakes recovered from the shock before the first thrill of excitement

had passed off.

"'Tis low manners to interrupt," he said in his smoothest tones, still

trying to discover Eves's whereabouts, but in vain. "I was a-going to

say----"

"Answer the question!" came in a chorused roar from the soldiers. "Who

raised Widow Pouncey's rent?"

"Shall I tell 'em, sir?" whispered Mrs. Pouncey.

"No, no!" advised Templeton, anxious to avoid publicity. "Better say

nothing."

"Ay, I be that shy, and the room so terrible hot."

"As chairman of this meeting," said Noakes, with a patient smile, "I

rule that questions can't be asked now."

"Who--raised--Widow--Pouncey's--rent?" sang the Tommies, to the tune of

"Here we suffer grief and pain" _da capo_.

"Who was it, mate?" asked one of them.

"I dare say he'll tell us presently," said Eves, "if you keep it up a

little longer."

He had his eyes on the thermometer.

The "comrade from London" got up and spoke earnestly in Noakes's ear,

while the chorus continued. The mayor gave a sickly smile and held up

his hand. There was silence.

"My friend on my right," said the mayor, "reminds me as there's nothing

more powerful than the truth."

"Righto!" yelled the Tommies. "Who--raised----"

"_Nobody!_" shouted the mayor. "'Tis a lie!"

"What's a lie?" cried one of the men. The others looked enquiringly at

Eves.

"I say 'tis a lie!" repeated the mayor. "Mrs. Pouncey pays me five

shilling a week, the same as she's paid----"

He stopped, for three parts of the way down the hall there rose a stout

figure, with face flushed and bonnet awry. There was a moment's

breathless silence, then Mrs. Pouncey, with forefinger outstretched

towards the mayor, spoke out.

"Ay, the same as I've paid honest for twenty year, afore ever you come

into the town, and 'twas you as said 'twould be doubled as soon as

Parlyment lets you, if not afore, and not a word of a lie in it, Mr.

Noakes."