.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 43234
   :PG.Title: Bright Ideas
   :PG.Released: 2013-07-16
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Herbert Strang
   :MARCREL.ill: \C. \E. Brock
   :DC.Title: Bright Ideas
              A Record of Invention and Misinvention
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1920
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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BRIGHT IDEAS
============

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.. container:: frontispiece

   .. _`"''TIS YOUR DOING,' SPLUTTERED NOAKES, SHAKING THE SOOT FROM HIS CLOTHES"`:

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      :alt: "'TIS YOUR DOING," SPLUTTERED NOAKES, SHAKING THE SOOT FROM HIS CLOTHES.

      "'TIS YOUR DOING," SPLUTTERED NOAKES, SHAKING THE SOOT FROM HIS CLOTHES.  (*See page* `28`_)

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      BRIGHT IDEAS

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      A RECORD OF INVENTION
      AND MISINVENTION

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      BY

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      HERBERT STRANG

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      ILLUSTRATED BY \C. \E. BROCK

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   .. class:: medium

      HUMPHREY MILFORD
      OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
      LONDON, EDINBURGH, GLASGOW
      TORONTO, MELBOURNE, CAPE TOWN, BOMBAY
      1920

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   CONTENTS

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   `THE SMOKE MACHINE`_
   `TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED`_
   `A GAS ATTACK`_
   `THE CLIPPER OF THE ROAD`_
   `THE COLD WATER CURE`_
   `A BRUSH WITH THE ENEMY`_

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   LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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   *FRONTISPIECE IN COLOUR*

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`"''TIS YOUR DOING,' SPLUTTERED NOAKES,
SHAKING THE SOOT FROM HIS CLOTHES"`_
(see p. 38).  *Frontispiece*

.. vspace:: 1

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`"THERE WAS A RATTLING SOUND AND NOAKES
WAS HALF OBLITERATED"`_

.. vspace:: 1

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`"ITS RIDERS WERE FLUNG INTO THE HEDGE"`_

.. vspace:: 1

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`"TEMPLETON GRIPPED THE UNHAPPY MAN BY
THE COLLAR, AND HAULED HIM UP"`_

.. vspace:: 1

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`"'I'VE COTCHED 'EE,' HE CRIED"`_

.. vspace:: 1

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`"'HERE I BE, AND HERE I BIDE,' SAID EVES,
BRANDISHING THE POKER"`_

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`"THEY TRIPPED OVER THE WIRE AND SPRAWLED
AT FULL LENGTH"`_

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

`"'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'"`_

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

`"THE BOOM SWUNG OUT, AND CAME INTO SHARP
CONTACT, FIRST WITH NOAKES'S HEAD, THEN
WITH THE WIND-SCREEN"`_

.. vspace:: 1

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`"DAZE ME!' SAID THE CONSTABLE. 'SURELY—AY, 'TIS THE MAYOR'"`_

.. vspace:: 1

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`"THE WHOLE CONTENTS OF TEMPLETON'S EXPERIMENTAL TANK POURED DOWN"`_

.. vspace:: 1

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`"THE LAD DASHED ITS HEAD FULL IN NOAKES'S FACE"`_

.. vspace:: 1

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`"COVERED THEM WITH A DELUGE OF LIQUID MUD"`_

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.. _`THE SMOKE MACHINE`:

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   THE SMOKE MACHINE

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large

   I

.. vspace:: 2

Bob Templeton tucked a leg under him
on the parapet of the bridge on which he was
sitting, and with a look of gloomy disgust
spread a number of coins, the contents of
his trouser pocket, on the weather-beaten stone.

"Eleven and ninepence," he said, dolefully.  "That's all."

Tom Eves, who had been leaning his elbows
on the bridge, and watching the roach darting
among the weeds in the clear running stream
below, straightened himself, smiled, and,
diving a hand into his pocket, gave a comical
glance at the coins it returned with, and said:

"Well, you beat me.  I've got seven and
fivepence halfpenny, and no chance of more
for nearly a couple of months.  We're sturdy
beggars: under a pound between us."

"You can't do much with a pound."

"True, old sport, and still less with
nineteen and twopence halfpenny.  Might as
well not count the halfpenny."

"And there was so much I wanted to do.
There's the levitator, and the smoke machine,
and the perpetual pump——"

"And the microphone, and the lachrymator,
and the super-stink——"

"And the electric cropper, and the tar
entanglement, and—but what's the good of
talking?  They all mean cash."

"Well, haven't I read, in the days of my
youth, in the excellent Samuel Smiles, that
most inventors have been poor men?"

"That's all very well; but they started
with more than nineteen and twopence
half-penny—and war prices, too!  It's maddening
to think what chances we are missing.  This
is just the sort of place where you can think
out things quietly.  No masters to pounce
on your inventions before they are half
finished.  That automatic hair-cutter, now;
there was a ripping idea simply squashed flat.
A few touches would have made it perfect.
If that blatant ass, young Barker, hadn't
shouted before he was hurt——"

"Barked before he was bitten."

"Eh?  Oh, that's a pun.  I wish you'd be
serious.  If he hadn't shouted and brought
old Sandy on the scene the thing might have
been finished by now, and on the market."

"And what would the Hun say when he
came back after the war and found your
patent cutter in every one's pocket?  His
job would be gone.  Really, I've a sneaking
sympathy with the gentle Hun."

"I haven't—not a ha'porth.  Anyway,
now we've got to begin all over again, simply
because young Barker hadn't the pluck of a—of a——"

He paused for want of a word.

"Of a cucumber?" suggested Eves,
promptly filling the gap.

"Yes—of a cucumber," snapped Templeton,
who, for all his lack of humour, was quick
to suspect levity in his chum.

"By gum, he did look a sight!" added
Eves, grinning in gleeful reminiscence.  "Half
his crumpet bald as a billiard ball; t'other
half moth-eaten."

"Serve him right.  If he'd waited until
we'd readjusted the clippers, and shut his
face instead of raising Cain and bringing old
Sandy rushing in at a mile a minute, I'd have
made a thorough good job of him.  He was a
beautiful subject, too; hadn't seen a barber
for six weeks."

"And enough grease on his mane to make
the thing self-lubricating.  There's an idea for
you, old man."

"Yes; I hadn't thought of that.  But
what's the good?  Here we're in a quiet
village, with the run of old Trenchard's
disused barn; all the conditions favourable,
but no funds!  Upon my word——"

"Hullo, Postie," cried Eves at this point.
"Anything for us?"

The village postman, a veteran of sixty
years, had appeared round the corner of the
lane that abutted on the bridge, his boots
white with the dust gathered since he had
started his morning tramp of ten miles a
couple of hours before.

"Marnen, young genelmen," said the postman.
"Fine marnen, to be sure.  Ay, I've
got one little small thing in the way of a
registered letter."

"Then I've no further interest in you, my
friend," said Eves.  "Registered letters are
not in my scheme of life."

"Good now; that saves me the trouble of
asking ye which is Mr. Robert Templeton.
No, no," he added, as Templeton held out his
hand.  "Ye'll sign the bit o' paper first.
Just there, with my pencil, an 'ee please;
'twon't rub out, and I've got to think of my
fame in the land; forty year in the service
and no complaints, I don't care who the
man is."

Templeton signed the green-tinted receipt
slip; the postman handed over the letter,
bade them good morning, and shambled away.

"From my aunt," remarked Templeton as
he cut open the envelope.

"My prophetic soul!" exclaimed Eves.
"How much, Bob?"

Templeton flourished a ten-pound note,
but made no reply until he had read through
the accompanying letter, which he then
handed to Eves with the remark, "She's a
good old sort."

"Wasn't it Solomon said, 'Go to the
aunts'?" said Eves.  A broad smile spread
over his face as he read the letter, which
ran as follows:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent

   "MY DEAR NEPHEW,

.. vspace:: 1

"I am really *sorry* that we shall
not be able to spend the holidays together
this year, as we have often done so *delightfully*
in the past, but I feel that I am only doing
*what is right*.  It is *so important* in these
terrible times that everybody should practise
the *strictest economy* in food; and every one
must do what he (*or she*\) can for our dear
country; and I have every hope that by going
about the villages in my caravan, as I told
you in my last, and delivering simple lectures
on the greens and other public places, I may
persuade the dear people, *especially the
mothers*, that it is not *really necessary* to
health to have *both* bacon *and* eggs for
breakfast *every* morning.  If you were a little
older and more experienced I am sure that
you would be able *and willing* to give me *very
great* assistance; but after your *arduous
labours* at school I feel you need complete
rest from brain work, and you will get that
nowhere so well as with *dear* Mr. and
Mrs. Trenchard.  To make up for your disappointment
in being deprived of our usual simple
pleasures I send you a little pocket-money,
which I am sure you will spend *wisely*.  I
*hope and believe* that you will not indulge in
luxuries; we all of us owe it to our *King and
country* to eat as little as we can.  You will
find that *barley water and onions fried in
margarine* make an excellent light breakfast;
will you tell Mrs. Trenchard that, *with my
love*?  In the course of my tour I hope to
reach Polstead before your holidays come to
an end.  I will give you good notice, and
rely on you to ensure me a *large audience*.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

"Your affectionate aunt,
   "CAROLINE TEMPLETON."

.. vspace:: 2

"Excellent Aunt Caroline!" exclaimed
Eves.  "But your 'arduous work,' Bobby.
My hat!"

"I work jolly hard."

"The labour we delight in don't show on
our reports, old man.  Anyway, you've got a
tenner.  Better an aunt in England than a
pater in India.  The old boy's all right, of
course; I don't blame him, but that old
mummy of a solicitor who manages things
here.  He'll pay Mother Trenchard's weekly
bills on the nail, but he won't send me another
penny till next quarter day; theory is, teach
me economy, as if any man could come through
the summer term with a pocketful of money!
The wonder is I've got fivepence halfpenny
plus seven bob."

"Well, Aunt Caroline's tenner will go a long——"

"Will go along too fast," Eves interrupted.
"What will you try first?"

"You see, I've got such loads of ideas.
Better start with something useful and
patriotic.  The hair-cutter can wait."

"That's rather a pity.  Young Noakes's
flaxen locks are as long and twice as oily as
Barker's.  Still, his father might cut up
rough; he'd certainly charge you for the
hair-oil you'd wasted.  Noakes gets my
bristles up, and Trenchard looks very blue
when he calls.  Wonder what he comes for;
we've only been here three days, and he's
called twice at tea-time, and eaten
enormously.  Any one could see the Trenchards
didn't want him; asked him to stay out of
politeness, I suppose."

"I say, we're not getting on.  There's the
tar entanglement."

"Jolly good idea!  Thousands of Huns
stuck fast like flies on a fly-paper; you know,
one of those you unroll and can't get off your
fingers.  But don't tar come from gasworks?"

"Really, I don't know.  Why?"

"I believe it does.  That idea's off, then,
for the present.  Let's try something with
material we can get close at hand."

"Well, what about the smoke machine?
With the submarines sinking our vessels——"

"Jolly good idea!  Lick the submarine,
and the Hun's done—*un*\done, you might say.
I vote for the smoke machine, then.  By
the way, where will you change your note?
A tenner's a rarity here, I fancy, and
Trenchard won't have any change."

"He'll be going into Wimborne or
Weymouth or somewhere to draw his hands'
wages at the week-end.  We can jog on till
then.  That's him calling us, isn't it?"

A prolonged shout reminded them that
it was time to start work.

"Another idea, Bob," said Eves as they
crossed the bridge and walked up the road.
"An automatic turnip-puller.  Of all the
dreary, deadly, backaching jobs, pulling
turnips is the rottenest."

"Still, it's work on the land; got to be
done by some one.  An automatic puller: I'll
think it over."

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   II

.. vspace:: 2

Fellow-members of the Sixth Form, and
close friends, Eves and Templeton were
spending the holidays together by force of
circumstances.  The latter was an orphan,
and lived with his aunt.  She, having
embraced the temporary career of lecturer on
food economy, had arranged that her nephew
should undertake voluntary farm work with
Giles Trenchard, whose wife was an old
family servant of the Templetons', and at
whose farm, in the Dorset village we will
call Polstead, Miss Templeton had visited
more than once.  Eves's parents were in
India, and the London lawyer in whose
guardianship he was placed raised no
objection when he proposed to spend the
holidays with his friend.

Five Oaks Farm was of no great size, and
had been the property of the Trenchard
family for generations.  The present owner,
a hale old yeoman whose features were framed
for perennial cheerfulness, had latterly looked
rather careworn.  A year before the war an
epidemic among his cattle had caused him
heavy losses.  Both his sons had joined the
Army and were now fighting in France,
a constant source of anxiety.  Being
short-handed, he was glad enough to avail himself
of the voluntary help of the two strapping
schoolboys of seventeen, and they had already,
though only three days at the farm, firmly
established themselves in the good graces
of both host and hostess by their readiness
to turn their hands to any kind of work.

Templeton, however, had not come to
this remote rural spot merely to work on
the land.  He had a serious belief that he
was cut out for an inventor, the only ground
for which was an astonishing fertility of
ideas.  At school he was always in hot water
with the masters; he would rather construct
an automatic hair-cutter than a Latin prose.
The prospect of a six or seven weeks' stay
in the quiet village, with the sea within a
mile, held promise for Templeton of many
opportunities for working out his ideas.
There were hours of leisure even on the farm,
and Mr. Trenchard, whom he had at once
taken into his confidence, was impressed
by his earnestness and put an old barn at his
disposal, pleasing himself with the hope that
some great invention would spring to birth
on Five Oaks Farm.

Templeton took himself very seriously,
and, as often happens, attracted to himself
a very unlike character in Tom Eves, to
whom life was one delightful comedy; even
the flint-hearted lawyer was matter for
jokes—except at end of term.  While having a
genuine admiration for Templeton, Eves's
humorous eye was quick to see the lighter
side of his friend's experiments, and he shared
in them for the sake of the fun which he did
not often trouble to disguise.

That evening, when work was over, Eves
and Templeton strolled down to the seashore
together to discuss plans for the smoke
machine.

"You see," said Templeton in his most
earnest manner, "in things like this you
can't do better than follow the example
of most other inventors, and see if
anything in the natural world will give us a
start."

"'Follow Nature,'" chuckled Eves.  "You
remember old Dicky Bird setting that as an
essay theme?"

"Yes; he sent mine up for good."

"He jawed me: sarcastic owl!  He was
always asking for homely illustrations, as he
called them, and when I gave him one he
snapped my head off.  I wrote, 'An excellent
example of the application of this philosophical
maxim in practical life is afforded
by the navvy, who, as the most casual
observer will often have noticed, dispenses with
a handkerchief when he has a cold in the
head.'  A jolly good sentence, what?"

"But I don't see——"

"Oh, it's not worth explaining; it was
the explanation that rattled the Dicky Bird.
What were you saying?"

"I was saying we ought to get a hint from
Nature.  What's the object of the smoke
machine?"

"To make a deuce of a smother, of course."

"Yes, to enable a vessel to hide itself from
a submarine.  Well, what's the nearest thing
in Nature?"

"Give it up; I'm no good at conundrums."

"This isn't a conundrum; it's a scientific
fact.  You alarm a cuttle-fish, and it squirts
out an inky fluid that conceals it from its
enemy."

"You don't say so!  Jolly clever of it.
Ought to be called the scuttle-fish.  But
how does that help you?  You want your
cloud in the air, not in the water."

"Of course.  The idea is to produce a
large volume in a short time, of great opacity,
yet spreading rapidly over a large area.
What's the nearest parallel in Nature?"

"Human nature?"

"I said Nature."

"Well, human nature's a part of Nature;
and, if you ask me, I should say a careless
cook and a foul kitchen chimney—the fire
engine up, and a month's notice."

"I do wish you'd be serious.  But you've
hit it all the same.  Half-consumed carbon——"

"You mean soot?"

"Soot is half-consumed carbon.  That's
the stuff we want.  It's the very thing,
because a steamship produces loads of it
every day.  All you want is a suitable
apparatus and what you may call a firing
charge.  I'll just make a note."

He took out his note-book, and wrote in
his very neat handwriting the following
tabular statement:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium

   SMOKE MACHINE.

.. class:: center small

   REQUIRED.

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   \1. Soot.
   \2. Combustibles.
   \3. Receptacle.
   \4. Vehicle.

.. vspace:: 2

"Four-wheelers are cheap, but bang goes
your tenner, Bobby," said Eves, looking over
his shoulder.  "Can't you do without the
vehicle?"

"You don't understand.  We must have
something to carry the receptacle along at a
good speed, like a ship at sea.  A motor-boat
would be the very thing, but that's out of
the question.  We must find something cheap
to experiment with on land, and if it works
I'll send the scheme to the Admiralty, and
they'll provide funds for marine tests."

"Jolly good idea!  I suggest we take the
things in order.  Soot first.  What about
that?  There won't be much in the chimneys.
Mother Trenchard's sure to have had a spring
cleaning."

"We'll see.  Combustibles are easily got."

"Fire-lighters!  You can get 'em at old
Noakes's; they make a fine smoke themselves
and a jolly good stink.  Splendid!"

"They might do.  I don't see my way to
numbers three and four at present, but I'll
ask Trenchard if he has anything he could
let us have cheap; he takes a great interest
in my inventions."

"Good, old bird.  I say, it's about supper-time;
we'd better get back.  You didn't say
anything to Mrs. Trenchard about barley
water and fried onions and margarine?"

"Not yet."

"Good man!  She'll be quite satisfied
with Aunt Caroline's love.  Come on."

At supper, in the farmer's raftered
living-room, while Templeton was considering how
to open up the matter of soot with
Mrs. Trenchard, Eves suddenly began to sniff.

"Is that a smell of soot?" he said.  "Does
the chimney need sweeping, Mrs. Trenchard?"

"There now!" exclaimed the farmer's
wife, a comfortable-looking matron some
years younger than her husband.  "If I
didn't say to Trenchard I was sure the noses
of you London gentlemen would find it out!
Us country bodies don't notice it, bless you."

Eves grinned.

"'Tis true," the good woman went on;
"it do need the brush.  But there, what can
you do when the milingtary takes the only
sweep in the village and makes a soldier of
him?  I declare I didn't know him, he was
so clean.  'Tis a strange thought: the war
makes men clean and chimneys dirty."

"And takes away my appetite," said Eves,
with his mouth half full of bacon.  "Look
here, Mrs. Trenchard, you're going to market
to-morrow morning; why shouldn't we sweep
the chimney for you while you're away?  I'm
sure Templeton and I could do it, and we'd
like to, awfully."

"'Tis very kind of you, that I will say;
but I couldn't abear to think of you dirtying
yourselves."

"Oh, that's nothing.  We get dirty enough
on the farm."

"But that be clean dirt, not like the bothersome
sut.  Besides, there's no chimney brush
and no rods."

"Quite unnecessary," declared Eves.
"Templeton has invented a new way of
sweeping chimneys, haven't you, Bob?"  He
gave him a kick under the table.  "You've
no idea what a lot of useful notions he's got
in his head."

"Well now, did you ever?" said Mrs. Trenchard.
"Do 'ee tell me all about it, Mr. Templeton."

"To-morrow, Mrs. Trenchard," said Eves,
hastily.  "You see, it's quite new, and hasn't
been properly tried yet.  An inventor never
likes to talk about his inventions until he's
proved they're a success."

"Ay sure; he's in the right there," said
Mr. Trenchard.

"I knew you'd agree," said Eves.  "Well,
then, we've settled that we sweep the chimney
while you're out, Mrs. Trenchard, and we'll
tell you all about it when you get back.
You'll be delighted, I assure you."

When they went up to the room they
shared, Templeton turned upon his chum a
face of trouble, and began:

"Look here, old man, it isn't right, you
know.  You know very well I have not
invented a way of——"

"Hold hard!  You don't mean to tell me
you haven't got it all cut and dried?"

"Well, when you began gassing, of course
I had to think of something to save my face."

"I knew it!  The idea was there; it only
wanted switching on, like electricity.  What's
the scheme?"

"Still, I don't think you ought——"

"The scheme!  Out with it."

"Well, I thought we might get on the roof
with a long cord, with weights and a bundle
of straw tied to one end, and jerk it up and
down inside the chimney."

"And the soot falls, and great is the fall of
it!  Splendid!  Couldn't be better.  We'll
have a ripping day to-morrow."

Next morning, soon after breakfast, Mrs. Trenchard
set off for the market town, driving
one of the light carts herself.  The farmer went
off to his mangold fields; the maids were
busy in the dairy across the yard; and the
inventors had the house to themselves.  The
simple materials they needed were easily
obtained, and within an hour the novel
sweeping apparatus was ready.  It had been
decided that Templeton should climb to the
roof, while Eves remained in the room to see
how the invention succeeded.

Only when he was left to himself did it
occur to Eves that something should be hung
in front of the fireplace to prevent the soot
from flying into the room, as he had seen done
by professional sweeps, and he ran to the
potato shed to find an old sack or two that
would answer the purpose.  While he was
still in the shed, a man entered the yard and
looked cautiously around.  He was a strange
figure.  A straw slouch hat, yellow with age,
covered long, greasy black hair.  His long,
straight upper lip was clean shaven, but his
cheeks and chin were clothed with thick, wiry
whiskers and beard.  He wore a rusty-black
frock-coat, grey trousers very baggy at the
knees, and white rubber-soled shoes.  It was
none other than Philemon Noakes, the owner
of the village store, grocer, oilman, draper,
seedsman—a rustic William Whiteley.

Seeing no one about, he approached the
farmhouse, walking without once straightening
his legs, glanced in at the open door,
then round the yard, and, after hesitating a
moment, entered the room.  Mr. Trenchard's
desk, open and strewn with papers, stood
against the wall to the left.  Noakes walked
to it, and had just bent down, apparently
with the object of looking over the farmer's
correspondence, when a muffled sound from
the neighbourhood of the fireplace caused him
to start guiltily and turn half round.

At that moment Eves, carrying a couple of
sacks, arrived at the door.  Seeing the man
start away from the desk, he stepped back out
of sight to watch what was going on.

Noakes, as if to resolve a doubt or satisfy
his curiosity, crept across the room, doubled
himself, and looked up the chimney.  There
was a rattling sound, and Noakes was half
obliterated in a mass of soot, clouds of which
floated past him into the room.  Hatless,
choking, rubbing his eyes, he staggered back.

.. _`"THERE WAS A RATTLING SOUND AND NOAKES WAS HALF OBLITERATED"`:

.. figure:: images/img-029.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "THERE WAS A RATTLING SOUND, AND NOAKES WAS HALF OBLITERATED."

   "THERE WAS A RATTLING SOUND, AND NOAKES WAS HALF OBLITERATED."

"I say, Mr. Noakes, what *are* you up to?"
said Eves, entering with the sacks.  "What a
frightful mess you're in!"

.. _`28`:

"'Tis your doing," spluttered Noakes,
shaking the soot from his clothes.  "'Tis
you, I know 'tis, and I'll—I'll——"

"Gently, Mr. Noakes, don't be rash.  Why
you should accuse me when I'm perfectly
innocent—you've hurt my feelings, Mr. Noakes."

"What about my feelings?" shouted the
angry man.  "'Tis a plot betwixt you and
t'other young villain, and——"

"Really, Mr. Noakes, with every consideration
for your wounded feelings, I must say I
think you most insulting.  Who on earth was
to know that you'd be paying one of your
visits just at the moment when the chimney
was being swept, and would choose that very
moment to look up the chimney?  You
surely didn't expect to find Mr. Trenchard
there?"

Noakes glared; at the same time his eyes
expressed a certain uneasiness.  How much
had this smooth-spoken young ruffian seen?
Picking up his hat he shook the soot from it,
rammed it on his head, and strode to the door.
There he turned, shouted, "You've not heard
the last of this," and hurried away.

When Templeton came in a minute later he
found Eves sitting back in a chair, shaking
with laughter.

"My word, what a frightful mess!"
exclaimed Templeton.  "I forgot all about a
covering.  It's nothing to laugh at."

"Oh, isn't it!  If you'd only seen him,
soot all over his greasy head, and the more he
rubbed his face the worse it got."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"Old Noakes.  It's a priceless invention,
Bob.  Great minds don't think of little
things, but *I* remembered the covering and
fetched these two sacks.  When I got back
Noakes was here, prying into Trenchard's
papers.  But I fancy he heard a sound, for he
went over to the chimney, and then—by
George! you've missed the funniest sight ever
seen.  He's only just gone, in a most frightful
paddy."

"I don't wonder.  Don't see anything
funny in it myself.  I called down 'Are you
ready?' and if you'd been here as we arranged
it wouldn't have happened."

"Of course it wouldn't, and old Noakes
wouldn't have been jolly well paid out for
sneaking.  What's he want nosing about at a
time when he thought every one was out?
Trenchard must be told."

"I don't know about that, but I do know
we'd better clear up this mess before
Mrs. Trenchard gets back."

"Or she'll think precious little of your
invention.  It's a great success, anyway; you've
got more soot than you expected.  And old
Noakes carried away a lot."


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   III

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In Mrs. Trenchard's absence there was to
be no midday dinner.  After clearing up the
mess with the assistance of one of the
dairy-maids (who called it "a rare messopotamia
as anybody ever did see"), the two lads
went to join the farmer at lunch in the fields.

"That there invention, now," said
Mr. Trenchard.  "Hev it worked?"

"Splendid!" said Eves, emphatically.
"We've got two good sacks of soot and scared
a slug."

"It don't take a mighty deal to do that,
sir," said the farmer with a smile.  "I'll find
that soot useful, and I'm much obleeged to
'ee, to be sure."

"Oh, but, Mr. Trenchard, could you spare
me some?" said Templeton.

"For another invention," Eves added.
"He's got a jolly good idea for protecting our
ships from the U-boats, and soot's in it."

"As much as you do want, surely.  I'd gie
more'n a little to scrimp them there engines of
iniquity."

"And perhaps you could help me with
something else," said Templeton.  "I want a
sort of metal box; any old thing would do,
something that's no good for anything else."

"I can find 'ee summat, I b'lieve.  There
be an old tank in the shed behind the dairy,
where I keep th' old tricycle."

"A tricycle!" exclaimed Eves.  "What
about that for number four, Bob?"

"The very thing!  Will you lend it or sell
it, Mr. Trenchard?"

"I'll take no money from a young gent as
is inventing for his country, danged if I will.
'Tis a old ancient thing that I bought five-and-twenty
year ago for me and the missus."

"A sociable!" cried Eves.  "We are in luck's way."

"'Tis called such, I b'lieve," said the
farmer.  "Ay, 'tis many a year since
the missus and me went gallivanting about the
country.  She were a nesh young maid then,
so to speak it; you wouldn't think it to see the
size she've growed to.  I've kep' th' old thing
for the sake o' them gay young days."

"If you can spare us this afternoon, I'd
like to experiment with it," said Templeton.

"Surely, and welcome, and I hope 'twill
serve 'ee."

Hurrying back to the farmhouse they drew
the tricycle from the shed and tried its paces
over the yard.  It was rusty and stiff, but a
little oil eased the parts, and Templeton was
delighted with his number four.  The tank of
which Mr. Trenchard had spoken was made
of galvanised iron, and had several holes
pierced in each side.

"The very thing!" cried Templeton.
"We'll make some more holes at different
heights, Tom."

"What for?"

"My idea is to rig up some trays inside the
tank, one above another; there are several old
sheets of iron lying about.  They'll hold the
soot and combustibles."

"By George! we forgot to ask Mother
Trenchard to bring some firelighters."

"Never mind about them for the moment.
We'll bore holes just above the trays, and
put in some straw soaked in paraffin, and light
it.  Then when we start there'll be a fine
draught through the holes."

"Splendid!  But shan't we be fairly choked?"

"Of course we'll rig up the tank behind us;
the smoke will all blow back."

Eves eyed the tricycle dubiously.

"It'll be the dickens of a job to fix this
heavy tank," he said.

"Oh, we'll manage it.  There's plenty of
wire about, and we can hunt up something
that will do for stays."

They worked energetically all the afternoon.
Templeton's patience and ingenuity triumphed
over all difficulties.  The tank slipped off
several times, but at last it was firmly fixed
with an elaborate arrangement of stays and
wire, and when Mrs. Trenchard returned,
between five and six o'clock, she beheld her
guests careering round the farmyard, making
a trial trip.

"Well, I never did see!" she exclaimed,
pulling up the horse at the gate.  "Whatever
hev happened to the old tricycle?"

Eves waved his hand gleefully.

"Splendid!" he cried, as Templeton halted
the machine beside the cart.  "A new invention,
Mrs. Trenchard."

"'Tis like the butcher's contraption I saw
in the town, only the box is behind instead of
afore.  What be the hidden meaning of that,
I'd like to know?"

"It won't be hidden long, Mrs. Trenchard.
But the sun will be hidden; there'll be an
eclipse to-night."

"Go along with your rubbish, Mr. Eves.
The sun will go down at his proper time,
whatever the clocks do say; they Parlyment
men up along at Lunnon can't make no
eclipses, don't think it."

"Templeton means to; don't you, Bob?"

"He *does* talk rubbish, Mrs. Trenchard,"
said Templeton, earnestly.  "All that he
means is that we're going to try making a
thick smoke, to see if we can hide our ships
from the German submarines."

"Well, never did I hear the like o' that!
You'll need a powerful deal o' smoke, Mr. Templeton."

"Of course, this is only experimental, on a
very small scale.  If it succeeds——"

"He'll be rolling in wealth, and you shall
have a new bonnet, Mrs. Trenchard," said Eves.

"Ah, me!  That do remind me of my boy
Joe, to be sure; allers a-going to be rich and
gie me a new bonnet.  And now, poor boy,
he's in them there horrible trenches, and the
rats——"

"Cheer up, Mrs. Trenchard," said Eves,
hastily, spying a tear.  "I'm sorry for the
rats, from what you've told us of Joe.  I'm
sure you want your tea after your long day.
We want ours, I can tell you; and after tea,
Templeton will give you a demonstration of
this splendid invention.  I say, Bob," he
added, when Mrs. Trenchard had gone into
the house, "while they're making tea there'll
be just time for you to cut down to the village
and buy some firelighters at old Noakes's.  I
don't suppose he'd serve me.  Hurry up."

Mr. Trenchard returning from the fields a
few minutes later, Eves unburdened himself.

"I say, Mr. Trenchard," he said, "when I
told you we scared a slug, I didn't mean one
of those small slimy things, you know.  I
meant Mr. Noakes.  I caught him poking his
nose into your papers this morning.  I think
you ought to know."

"Do 'ee tell me that, now?" said the
farmer, looking distressed.

"Honest Injun.  He was over at your desk
when we were sweeping the chimney, and the
fact is, he got a mouthful of soot and went
away fuming."

"I'd never have believed it, and him a
chapel member," said Mr. Trenchard.  "Don't
'ee go for to anger Mr. Noakes, sir, med I
beseech 'ee."

"All right.  I dare say he'll keep out of our
way.  Of course, if he's a friend of yours——"

"I wouldn't say that, sir, but as the Book
do say, 'as much as lieth in you, be at peace
wi' all men.'"

"Jolly good idea!  If the other chap
won't be at peace with you, then you must
go for him.  Splendid!"

After tea they made their first trial at
smoke production.  Placing a layer of soot
on each of the trays, with a couple of
fire-lighters in the midst, they lit some straw
soaked in paraffin, poked it through the holes,
and began to treadle the machine round the
yard, the farmer and his wife looking on at
the door.  A considerable volume of smoke
poured out of the tank, but when they pulled
up, Mr. Trenchard said:

"'Tis a noble beginning, to be sure; but I
own, so to speak, I could allers see that there
tank through the smother, and if I understand
your true meaning, that hadn't oughter be."

"Quite right," said Templeton.  "We want
more of a draught, Tom.  Larger holes and
greater speed."

"Righto!" said Eves.  "Will you chisel
the holes larger?  Then we might start on a
real cruise—down the hill to the village, say.
You can't work up much speed in the yard.
What do you think of it, Mrs. Trenchard?"

"I know why my chimney wanted sweeping
so bad, Mr. Eves.  Ay sure, ye're just as full
of mischief as my Joe."

Half an hour's work with a chisel and
hammer sufficed to enlarge the holes.  They
then filled up the trays with more soot and
firelighters, kindled a fire, and when the
smoke began to surge, ran the machine out at
the gate on to the high-road.  A winding hill,
nearly half a mile long, led down to the
village.  The slope was not very steep;
the tricycle with its tank was heavy, and the
bearings rusty; but by dint of hard pedalling
they soon worked up a good speed, and the
increased draught caused the smoke to pour
forth in a dense cloud, ever increasing in
volume and pungency.

Meanwhile in the village young Noakes had
noticed the first issues of smoke, and ran into
his father's shop shouting:

"Feyther, feyther, Farmer Trenchard's
ricks be afire!"

Noakes, in a state of great agitation, rushed
to the door in his apron, glanced up the hill,
and cried, excitedly:

"Fire, fire!  Run and rouse up the neighbours,
Josiah.  'Tis a matter o' hundreds o' pounds.  Fire!"

The boy set off through the village at a
frantic run, shrieking "Fire!" at the top of
his voice.  Out rushed the baker in his singlet
straight from the oven; the butcher in blue
with his chopper; the smith from his forge,
rolling up his leather apron; the agricultural
labourers, smoking their after-tea pipes; the
village constable in his shirt-sleeves.  The
little street filled with women and children,
the latter flocking to the shed where the
village fire manual was kept, and towards which
the tradesmen, members of the volunteer fire
brigade, were hastening.  Waiting only to don
their helmets, the men dragged the clumsy
machine forth, Noakes being the most
energetic, and began to drag it up the hill, the
children following in a swarm.

"It do seem out a'ready, sonnies," said
the smith, before they had gone many yards.

"That's true as gospel," said the baker.
"Do 'ee think I med go back to my dough,
neighbours?"

They came to a halt.  It was the interval
during which Eves and Templeton were
overhauling and restocking the machine.

"'Tis a mercy for Trenchard," added the smith.

"A merciful Providence," murmured
Noakes, the lines of anxiety disappearing
from his face.  "Run up along and tell
neighbour Trenchard how we all do heartily
rejoice, Josiah."

The boy started, but the moment after he
had turned the first corner he came rushing
back with his eyes like saucers.

"Feyther," he yelled, "fire bain't out.  'Tis
blazing worse, and ricks be ramping down
along like giant Goliath!"

"'Tis a true word, save us all!" cried the
baker.  "What in the name——"

"Now, sonnies, haul away," cried the
smith.  "Ricks hev staddles but no legs, as
fur as I do know.  'Tis the wind blowing the
smoke down along.  Now, all together."

The windings of the road, and the hedges
on each side, prevented them from getting a
clear view of this singular phenomenon.  All
that they were aware of was a dense cloud of
black smoke approaching them very rapidly.
They had just restarted the manual engine
when, round the bend just ahead, the tricycle
shot into view with a huge trail of smoke
behind it.

"Sakes alive!" gasped the smith.

The children yelled, and fled down the road.
The men, after an instant's dismayed irresolution,
scattered up the banks into the hedges,
leaving the engine standing half across the
road.  Noakes, on whose face a dark flush had
gathered as he recognised Eves, backed into
a hazel and flourished his fists.

Templeton, who was steering, tried to turn
the machine into the hedge before it reached
the manual.  But he was a shade too late; the
off wheel fouled the engine; the tricycle spun
round; its riders were flung into the hedge,
and the trays, parting company with the tank
as it overturned, were distributed in several
directions, bestowing a good portion of their
noisome contents impartially among the
members of the fire brigade.

.. _`"ITS RIDERS WERE FLUNG INTO THE HEDGE"`:

.. figure:: images/img-048.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "ITS RIDERS WERE FLUNG INTO THE HEDGE."

   "ITS RIDERS WERE FLUNG INTO THE HEDGE."

The inventors picked themselves up, rubbed
their elbows, and approached the discomfited
villagers, who, coughing and spluttering, were
now descending into the road.  Templeton
looked serious; Eves wore a broad grin.

"Really, I'm extremely sorry," began the former.

"Sorry be jowned!" shouted the baker.
"Sorry won't clean my hands, and my dough
a-spoiling."

"'Tis rank pison!" cried the butcher.

"Assault and battery and attempted murder,"
shrieked Noakes, furiously.  "Wi' my
own firelighters!"

"Let us discuss it calmly," said Templeton.
"No one can regret more than I the—the
inconvenience to which you have been put,
quite without intention, I assure you——"

"But the fact is," Eves interposed, pointing
to the manual, "you were on the wrong
side of the road.  Constable, I appeal to you."

The constable, who had left his fire helmet
in the hedge, scratched his head, the villagers
looking at him expectantly.

"Well, neighbours all," he said, slowly,
"the law's what it is, and I'm not the man,
being sworn in my office of constable—'t ud be
high treason or worse to gainsay it.  And I
don't care who the man is, that there manual
be on the right when the law says it oughter
be on the left, and no true man can deny it."

"That's for horses and carts, for horses
and carts," fumed Noakes.

"As a man I respect you, neighbour
Noakes," said the constable, solemnly, "but
as a officer of the law I say you don't know
nothing about it.  The manual's a vehicle;
well, then, the law's no respecter of persons,
and what be law for a horse and cart be law
for a manual; ay sure, for a baby's pram, if
so be a pram was in custody."

"That's all very well," said the baker,
"but what's the law say about foul smoke?
Tell us that, constable."

"Foul smoke be from factory chimneys;
t'other smoke bain't foul."

"Of course not," said Eves.  "You've got
the law at your finger-ends, constable.  The
penalty for being on the wrong side is a heavy
fine, isn't it?"

"That depends on whether 'tis Squire
Banks or Sir Timothy on the bench, sir."

"Well, my friend won't prosecute, I'm
sure.  And when I tell you he was trying a
new invention for beating the Germans, you'll
be sorry you've ruined it through being on
the wrong side of the road."

"Wish we'd knowed that afore, sir," said
the smith.  "The truth on't is, we thought
'twas Farmer Trenchard's ricks afire."

"And like true Britons you rushed to help
your neighbour.  Splendid!  I'll tell
Mr. Trenchard how promptly the brigade turned
out; he's very lucky in having such good
friends."

"Speaking for us all, sir——" began the smith.

"Not for me," Noakes interrupted, savagely.

"Hear what the man hev got to say,
neighbour Noakes," said the baker.  "Mebbe
I won't agree with him myself, but I'm not
the man to say so afore he's hawked it out."

"Speaking for us all," the smith went on,
"I'm certain sure there's not a man of us but
hopes the gen'lman's invention bain't ruined
out and out.  Anything as will beat the
Germans hev our hearty good wishes, eh, souls?"

"Hear, hear!" cried the butcher.

"There, neighbour Noakes, you was too
primitive," said the baker, reprovingly.  "'Tis
a good cause we suffer in, and I'm not the
man to complain.  And speaking for us all,
I say three cheers for the young gen'lman."

The cheers were given, Noakes dissenting.
Eves shook hands with them all round,
Noakes excepted.  Then he helped them to
right the manual, and gave them a genial
good-bye as they trundled it off.

"We've had a ripping day, Bob," he said,
mopping his brow.  "The smoke was splendid—a
first-rate stink.  Old Noakes's face was
a picture."

He laughed heartily.

"I'm afraid the tricycle is crocked for ever,"
said Templeton with a gloomy look, "and I
don't approve——"

"Oh, pax!  You can pay Trenchard for
the old thing out of your tenner; and you're
jolly ungrateful.  If I hadn't chipped in they
wouldn't have cheered you.  Let's pick up
the ruins and get 'em back somehow.  Buck up!"

Mr. Trenchard received Templeton's apologies
for the break-up of the tricycle very
good-naturedly.  He refused his offer to buy
it or have it repaired.

"'Tis come to a good end, if so be your
invention is a success," he said.

Templeton drew out a specification of his
smoke machine and sent it to the Ministry of
Munitions.  In about a fortnight he received
a formal letter of acknowledgment.  But by
that time he had almost forgotten the smoke
machine, other ideas having absorbed his
attention and activities.





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.. _`TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED`:

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   TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

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   I

.. vspace:: 2

Mrs. Trenchard that evening, after a
brief absence from the living-room,
reappeared in her best flowered bonnet and a
muslin shawl and announced her intention
of going "just there and back."  Her
husband, who was reading the newspaper, looked
up and nodded.  Templeton was sketching
out a specification, and did not hear what
she said.  Eves gave her a cheerful *au revoir*
from the depths of the chair where he lay
at ease, and smiled at her retreating form.

"'Tis like that, sir," said the farmer,
catching his look.  "'There and back' in
our family do mean a gossip with Martha Runt."

"The wife of Runt the smith?"

"Ay, that be the woman.  I've not a word
to say against Martha—not a word; but
she be a rare workman with her tongue.  We
shan't see no more of Mother till supper-time."

He relapsed into his paper, and Eves
stretched his legs and watched Templeton
steadily pursuing his task.

Mrs. Trenchard returned a good hour
before she was expected.  Her rosy cheeks
were flushed a deeper shade than usual; her
bonnet was awry.

"I never did!" she exclaimed, pulling the
strings into a knot.  "No, never in all my
born days, without a word of a lie in it—never
hev I seed or heard no such goings on."

"What hev ruffled yer spirits, Mother?"
asked the farmer, mildly.

"You may talk till yer throat be dry as
a kex, Trenchard," cried the angry woman,
"but you'll never make me believe as black's
white—never!"

"What silly ass has been trying to,
Mrs. Trenchard?" said Eves, sitting up.  He had
passed a dull evening.

"There's my boy Joe," she went on.
"What did he do, though only a Territorial
and not supposed to move a leg out of his
parish?  'Mum,' says he—you heard un
wi' yer own ears, Trenchard—''tis said here
and there they want men in France.  Seems
to me I must go.'  'That heathen land!'
says I.  'Ay, that's the place,' says he;
'we're all going.'  And go he did, and what
wi' the rats and the mud——"

"Now, now, don't 'ee carry on, Mother,"
said the farmer, seeing that his wife's eyes
were filling.  "Who've been vexing yer
soul?  And I don't care who the man is——"

"Man!  He baint no man.  He's a conscientious
objection.  You'd never believe it,
Trenchard.  When I traipsed down along to
village, there was a crowd of a dozen or more
by church gate, and, thinks I, 'They be
talking o' young gentleman's invention';
but, coming up to them, no such thing; 'twas
that lad of Noakes's holding forth, preaching
peace as bold as brass."

"You don't say so, Mrs. Trenchard," cried
Eves.  "That little chap with the long hair?"

"No, no, Mr. Eves; little Josiah baint so
gifted.  'Twas Noakes's elder lad, Nahum by
name, as went away to work in Weymouth a
year or two back, and now home he comes
boasting of how he 'scaped the Army, and
telling folks the war is wrong, and we be as
much to blame as they Germans, and no one
didn't oughter fight for their country, and a
pack of rubbish.  All fighting be against his
conscience, says he—a pretty conscience,
indeed, as growed sudden when the Lords and
Parlyment said every man was a born soldier.
Conscience!  Why, Trenchard, you mind
how he used to leather his feyther's horse;
and many's the time I've seed un cuff and
pinch his little brother till the poor soul
hollered wi' pain.  The likes of him!  What
them there tribunals be about in letting him
off when good boys like my Joe, as wouldn't
hurt a fly and haven't got no conscience—there,
'tis a scandal, and makes my blood
boil, it do."

"Well, well, Mother," said Mr. Trenchard,
"I'll go as fur's to say I agree with 'ee; but
I wouldn't say a word against Mr. Noakes.
He's a man of renown in the parish."

"The dickens he is!" ejaculated Eves,
who had followed Mrs. Trenchard's story with
the liveliest interest.  Templeton, also,
having finished his draft, had listened with his
usual air of thoughtfulness.

"Judging by the price he charged for those
firelighters," he said, "Mr. Noakes is a
profiteer."

"Prophet neither here nor there, for all
his Bible name, and his sons' likewise,"
said Mrs. Trenchard.  "That there Nahum,
coming here and stuffing his unnat'ral
thoughts into the heads of our young fellers
whose time be nigh come!  There was Billy
Runt, and young Pantany, and Tim Coggins,
and such—oh! it did rile me, and I hadn't
the heart to go there, so I comed home along.
And bless 'ee, he be going to wag his tongue
again to-morrow, and axed the boys to bring
all their friends to hear un."

"Splendid!" cried Eves.  "I say, Bob,
we'll go.  You can nobble the audience for
Aunt Caroline."

This suggestion was not immediately
accepted by Templeton, but in the privacy
of their bedroom it bore fruit.

"This is rather serious, you know, Tom," he said.

"Broken a collar-stud, old man?" Eves rejoined.

"No; I mean this speechifying.  It's not
right for the fellow to turn the village boys
against military service."

"Gas like that won't do much harm."

"But it may.  It ought to be stopped.
It's our duty to stop it."

"Jolly good idea!  Start an opposition
meeting and talk him down.  Ripping rag!"

"I'm afraid I'm not up to that.  You see——"

"Leave it to me, then.  I bet I can rattle
my tongue faster than Nahum Noakes.  By
George!  Bobby, what an awful name!"

"You don't understand, Tom.  It isn't
talk that's wanted.  The question is, is he
sincere?  If he is—well, what about free
speech?"

"A free kick is more to the purpose.  But
what are you driving at?"

"Well, oughtn't we to find out if he really
has a conscientious objection?—test him, you
know?  Mrs. Trenchard seemed to doubt it,
and if he's a humbug he ought to be exposed."

"Just so, Socrates.  I'll kick him, and see
how he takes it.  You can't take him to
pieces like a clock, and examine his innards."

"That's the difficulty.  Your idea won't
do at all.  You can't justify an unprovoked
assault."

"I jolly well can.  But I'm dead beat;
pedalling that heavy old machine nearly biffed
me.  Sleep on it, Bob; perhaps you'll dream
one of your bright ideas."

But in the morning Templeton confessed
that he had slept as sound as a top, and hadn't
given the matter another thought.  Meditation
during the day was not more fruitful, and
in the evening, when they went down to the
meeting-place opposite the church porch,
Templeton had come to the conclusion that
they had better hear what Noakes had to say,
and act as circumstances seemed to require.

On the way they met Haylock, the constable,
nodded to him, and passed on.  After
a few seconds, however, Eves ran back, saying:

"I'll catch you in half a tick, Bob."

Templeton strolled on, too busy with his
thoughts even to wonder what his friend had
to say to the policeman, or to notice the broad
smile on Eves's face when he overtook him.

They found that the meeting had already
started.  A group of the male villagers, old
and young, was gathered in a half-circle in
front of a sturdy-looking fellow of some
twenty years, who was perched on the
churchyard wall.  Nahum Noakes's appearance was
that of an unusually robust clerk.  His black
hair was cut short; his straw hat was tilted
back, showing a neat middle parting and
well-oiled side-shows.  He wore a pointed
collar and a lilac tie; his grey flannel trousers
were hitched up, revealing lilac socks neatly
stretched above brown shoes.

"You want to know what I said to the
tribunal?" he was saying as the two
new-comers sauntered up.  His accent was that of
a countryman overlaid with a thin veneer of
town polish.  "I'll tell 'ee.  'Your name?'
says the chairman.  'Noakes,' says I.
'Christian name?' says he.  'Nahum,' says
I.  'Yes, your name,' says he.  'Nahum,'
says I.  'Don't waste our time,' says he;
'what is your *other* name besides
Noakes?'  'Nahum,' says I.  You see, neighbours, I
was taking a rise out of him.  'Is the man
an idiot?' says he.  'No, he's not, and he
knows his Bible,' says I.  That was a good
one, wasn't it?  Well, there was a young
officer there, only a lieutenant, but as stuck
up as if he was commander-in-chief.  Military
representative, he's called, I believe.  He
had a paper in his hand, and he cocked his
eye at it, and said: 'The man's Christian
name is Nahum, I find.'  'Oh! ah!' says
the chairman, fixing his eyeglass.  'One of
the minor prophets.  Well, Nahum Noakes,
what are the grounds of your appeal?'  'I
don't hold with fighting,' says I; ''tis against
my principles.'  One of the tribunal, a little
worm of a feller, pipes up: 'What would you
do, my man, if the Germans landed?'  'I'd
meet 'em as men and brothers,' says I."

"Was they yer principles when you cracked
young Beddoe's skull for saying as you sanded
yer feyther's sugar?" cried a voice from the
outskirts of the crowd.

There was a titter; Mr. Noakes, who had
been listening to his son's eloquence with a
fond smile of paternal pride, scowled at the
interrupter, Runt the smith.

"Abuse is no argument, Mr. Runt," said
Nahum, obviously nettled.  "What happened
years ago when I lived in the village
is not to the point.  Since I've been a resident
in the town I've done a deal of deep thinking,
I can tell you, and studied a lot of subjects
you've never heard of——"

"Ever study phrenology?" asked Templeton,
moving forward with Eves into the circle.

"Got it?" whispered Eves, eagerly.

"Perhaps," returned Templeton.

Nahum stared at his questioner.  The
villagers drew together, Runt winked at
Coggins the butcher.  Mr. Noakes looked
annoyed, and stiffened his long, straight
upper lip.

"You said?" began Nahum.

"I asked you if you had ever studied
phrenology, the science of reading the mind
through the skull."

"Well, I won't exactly say that I've been
very deep into it, but——"

"Allow me," interrupted Eves, who had
taken his cue.  "Having only just returned
to the village, you don't know my friend,
Mr. Templeton, who has gone very deeply into
loads of things, I assure you.  Mr.—I think
you said Nahum Noakes—you are really a
splendid specimen for the phrenologist, and
a little examination of your bumps——"

Nahum started back as Eves approached.

"It is quite painless, I assure you," said
Eves, soothingly.  "Mr. Templeton will only
pass his hand gently over your head, and from
the configuration of the cranium he will read
your character like an open book."

"I don't think I need even touch your
head," said Templeton.  "If you will kindly
just raise your hat—

"Give it a trial, Nahum," said Runt.  At
first puzzled, like the rest of the villagers,
he had now risen to the situation, and was
ready to lend his aid in its development.

"See if the young gen'l'man be right,"
added Coggins.  "We all know 'ee, from a
baby up'ard."

Half suspicious, angry at the interruption
of his discourse, and still more at the sniggers
of some of the younger members of the group,
Nahum seemed to think that to acquiesce
was the shortest cut out of his quandary.
He took off his hat.  Templeton stood in
front of him, inspecting his head with the
gravity of a judge at a cattle show.  Nahum
looked simply foolish.

Templeton moved slowly round, and leant
on the wall to get a back view of Nahum's head.

"Yes, it seems genuine," he said at last.
"I don't find the bump of pugnacity."

"Which means that he doesn't mind what
you do to him?" said Eves.

"Just so.  He's not a fighter."

Nahum's face cleared; his father shed a
gratified smile around the group.

"Supposing some one pulled his nose?"
Eves went on.

"He couldn't possibly resent it," replied
Templeton.  "It would be quite safe."

A loud guffaw from Runt brought a flush
to Nahum's cheeks, and a scowl to his brow.

"I'd like to see any one try it," he muttered.

Instantly Eves shot out his hand, seized
the somewhat prominent member in question,
and pulled.  Nahum sprang from the wall and
hit out.  Eves nimbly evaded the blow,
and for half a minute dodged up and down
like the matador at a bull-fight, pursued by
the infuriate youth, who became only the
more enraged as his clenched fists beat upon
empty air.  Shouts of laughter broke from
the crowd.  "Mind yer principles," cried
the smith.  "Gie un a larruping!" bellowed
Mr. Noakes.  Templeton looked worried.

At this moment the constable elbowed his
way into the arena.

"Good now, gen'l'men," he said; "this be
what the law do call a breach of the peace,
and I'm not so sure but 'tis time to take 'ee
both into custody for obstructing the police
in the execution of his duty."  He took
Nahum's arm.  "Come, come, sonny.  I
be surprised, and you such a man of peace
as never was."

"Ay, and he axed the gen'l'man to pull his
nose, he did so," said the smith.

"True, he said he'd like to see any one try
it," said Coggins.  "The gen'l'man only took
him at his word—hee, hee!"

Aware now of the pitfall into which he had
fallen, Nahum broke away from the constable,
plunged through the crowd, and hurried
away, followed closely by his father.

"A rare good randy, sir," said the smith to
Eves, "but I hope Philemon won't make 'ee
pay for it.  Howsomever, Nahum's tongue
won't wag no more, maybe, and that'll be for
the good o' the nation."

"Another ripping day, Bob," said Eves,
as he walked home with Templeton.  "That
idea of yours was splendid."

"I was quite serious," said Templeton.

"You always are, old man.  But you don't
mean to say you really meant to feel the
fellow's bumps?"

"I did, till I funked the bear's grease."

"And there really is a bump of pugnacity?"

"Of course there is—combativeness, they
call it.  It's at the back, low down.  The
fellow hadn't got a trace of it.  I really
think——"

"You'll be the death of me, Bob.  A fellow
who lashed out like that not combative?
Why, you can see it in his face—bully's
written there as plain as a pikestaff.  It's jolly
lucky you've got me to work out your ideas!
Anyway, it was a good rag, well worth half-a-crown."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I tipped old Haylock half-a-crown
to barge in if he heard a row.  That leaves
me four and elevenpence halfpenny."

.. vspace:: 2

A few days later Lieutenant Cradock,
military representative at the county tribunal,
rode over on his motor-bicycle and had a
short interview with Constable Haylock.
With the constable perched on the carrier he
went on to Trenchard's farm, and found Eves
and Templeton digging energetically along
the border of a field.  A conversation ensued,
freely punctuated with laughter, and the
officer rode away.

Next day a summons reached Nahum
Noakes to attend an adjourned meeting of the
tribunal.  The chairman announced that an
incident reported by the military representative
hardly squared with the appellant's
professions, and Nahum Noakes, passed A1,
was handed over to the military authorities.


.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   II

.. vspace:: 2

Spring and summer had been very dry,
and Farmer Trenchard's fields, lying on a
rocky upland, gave promise of but an
indifferent harvest.  The growth was thin,
the stalks were short and yellow, the husks
lean.  The farmer had almost given up hope
of his cereals, and his root crops could only
be saved if the drought was soon broken.

On the morning following the affair of
Nahum Noakes's bumps Mr. Trenchard was
walking along the edge of one of his fields,
looking disconsolately at the drooping
upper-growth of the carrots.  Eves and Templeton
were hoeing some little distance away.

"Here's old Noakes," said Eves, suddenly.
"Wonder if he's come to grouse about yesterday?"

Mr. Noakes, dressed as usual in his rusty
frock-coat, but wearing a new straw slouch
hat—his old one had not survived its bath
of soot—was shambling up the field to meet
the farmer.

"Marnen, neighbour Trenchard," he said.

"Marnen, Mr. Noakes," returned the
farmer, with the air of timidity that marked
all his intercourse with his neighbour.  The
two men stood together, Noakes smug and
self-satisfied, Trenchard downcast and almost
humble.

"It do seem you'd be the better for a drop
of rain," Noakes went on.  "The ground
be dust dry.  Them there carrots baint no good."

"True; I'm afeared 'twill be a bad year wi' me."

"Well, we're in the hands of Them above,"
said Noakes, smiling and rubbing his hands
slowly together.  "The old ancient men of
Egypt had their lean years and their years of
plenty; we can't look for no different in these
here end o' the world times."

"Ah, Mr. Noakes, I don't gainsay 'ee, but
'tud hev made all the difference to me, a good
moist season.  I be afeard I shall have to
axe 'ee——"

"Not a word, neighbour.  Sufficient unto
the day, you know.  Not but what 'tis a
misfortune to 'ee, but things may take a turn."

He thrust his hands into his pockets and
stood for a few moments scanning the fields;
then after a word or two of a general nature
moved away, without having appeared to
notice the two boys.

"Cut dead!" said Eves with a grin.  "A
good thing too; I loathe the fellow.  Poor
old Trenchard will be wretched all the rest
of the day.  I wonder why he always looks
so hang-dog when Noakes is about?  He
couldn't look worse if Noakes was his
landlord and he couldn't pay the rent.  And upon
my word, Noakes has cheek enough for two.
I saw him prodding the cattle the other day
as if he owned 'em, or would like to.  What
do you think about it?"

"Eh?  about Noakes?  I wasn't thinking
of him," said Templeton.  "I was wondering
whether we couldn't do something to help
save the old man's crops."

"Well, old chap, if you can invent rain——"

"Don't be an ass.  Of course I can't.
But I don't see why we shouldn't irrigate,
as they do in India."

"We haven't got an Indus, and the river
down there is too far away, and below this
level.  You can't make water run up-hill."

"But there's the brook just at the edge of
the field, behind that ridge.  All we've to do
is to divert it."

"My good man, it's miles below the top of
the ridge.  Besides, there's not much water
at the best."

"There's enough.  We should have to
build a dam, of course.  Then the water
would collect till it rose to the height of the
ridge and flowed over, and we could carry it
over the fields through small drains.  You
see, the stream runs straight to the sea;
there are no fishing rights to consider, and
it's not used for mills or anything of that sort."

"A jolly back-aching job, digging drains
and what not.  No chance of a rag.  Still,
the idea's good enough, and I'd like to see
old Trenchard more cheerful.  You had
better see what he says about it."

The farmer was so much preoccupied with
his gloomy thoughts that he scarcely appreciated
at first the nature of the service which
Templeton offered to render.  This, as Eves
pointed out afterwards, was partly due to
Templeton's manner of broaching the subject.

"Your jaw about irrigation and the Punjab
was enough to put him off it," said Eves, who
was nothing if not frank.  "Of course, the
old countryman didn't understand; he
understood right enough when I chipped in.
There's nothing like what old Dicky Bird,
when you do a rotten construe, calls *sancta
simplicitas*."

Between them they managed to explain
the idea to Mr. Trenchard, and to win his
assent.  Indeed, the chance of saving his
crops had a magical effect on his spirits.

"It do mean a mighty deal to me," he
said; "more'n you've any right notion of.
I wish 'ee success, that I do."

They started work on the following
morning.  From the rocky banks of the stream
they rolled down a number of stones and
boulders and piled them in the channel to
the height of the ridge, forming two adjacent
sides of a square.  Then up stream they cut
a quantity of brushwood, which, being set
afloat, was carried by the water against the
piled-up stones.  This occupied them the
whole day, and they left for the next the final
operation—the digging of earth to stop up
the interstices through which the water still
flowed away, and the carrying of it in
wheelbarrows to its dumping places.

It was while they were digging that
Lieutenant Cradock arrived to interrogate them
about the conscientious objections of Nahum
Noakes.  About half an hour after his
departure Nahum's father appeared on the
scene, breathless from hurrying up the hill
from the village.  He had pumped Constable
Haylock, who was a simple soul, and had
learnt enough about the recent interview
to feel a gnawing anxiety as to the fate of
his beloved Nahum.  He was hatless, and
wore his apron, with which he wiped the
shining dew from his face as he stood watching
the diggers.

"Marnen, gen'l'men," he said, presently,
in the tone of one who would be a friend.
"'Tis warm work 'ee be at, surely."

"A warm day, Mr. Noakes," said Templeton,
resting on his spade.  Eves went on digging.

"Ay, sure, 'tis warm for the time o' year,
so 'tis.  Vallyble work; if there be one thing
I do admire, 'tis to see young gen'l'men go
forth unto their labour until the evening, as
the Book says—earning their bread with the
sweat of their brow.  Ah, 'tis a true word."

Templeton was too modest to acknowledge
this compliment.  Eves went on digging.
Mr. Noakes hemmed a little, and stroked his
beard.

"Purticler such young gen'l'men as you
be," he went on, "as hev gone deep into book
learning and gives yer nights and days to
high matters.  That there finology, now;
that be a very deep subjeck—very deep
indeed; wonderful, I call it, to read into
the heart through the head.  Nobody 'ud
never hev thought 'twere possible.  And so
correck, too; my boy Nahum, as peaceful
as a lamb—you was right about that there
bump, sir."

"He certainly hasn't got the bump of
combativeness," said Templeton; "but——"

"Ah, yes, to be sure; he was a trifle
overtaken with yer friend's joke, as any young
feller might be; but I told un 'twas just a
bit o' juvenile high spirits, and so he oughter
hev took it.  'Let not the sun go down upon
yer wrath,' says I, and bless 'ee, he smiled
like a cherub next day, he did.  That there
bump be a good size on soldiers' heads, now?
I warrant that young officer man as I seed
down in village has a big un."

"I really didn't think to look, Mr. Noakes,"
said Templeton, patiently.

"Only think o' that, now, and I felt in my
innards he'd come up along a-purpose.  You
didn't say nought o' finology, then?"

"Well, it was mentioned—just mentioned."

"And Mr. Templeton assured Lieutenant
Cradock that your son hadn't the slightest
prominence in that part of the skull," Eves
broke in.  "In fact, it's the other way about."

"Wonderful ways o' Providence!" said
Mr. Noakes, rubbing his hands together and
smiling happily.

"But I'm bound to say——" Templeton began.

"Come on, Bob; shovel in, or we'll never
get done," Eves interrupted.  "There's
enough stuff dug; let's cart it down.  We're
trying an experiment in irrigation, Mr. Noakes."

"Ah! irrigation.  It needs a dry soil, to
be sure; it'll grow well here—very well
indeed."

Eves smothered a laugh, and let Templeton
explain.  The explanation, strangely enough,
brought a shadow upon Mr. Noakes's face.  It
darkened as he watched the dumping of the
earth upon the dam.  He was silent; his
mouth hardened; and after a few more
minutes he shambled away.

"I'm afraid we've given him a wrong
impression," said Templeton, anxiously.

"Well, he shouldn't be sly.  Besides, if
he's ass enough to think 'finology' will go
down with the tribunal, that's his look-out."

They worked hard through the rest of the
day, and by tea-time the water had begun to
trickle over the ridge in many little rills.  It
seemed, indeed, that there would be no
necessity to dig the channels of which
Templeton had spoken, the slope of the ground and
the natural fan-like spreading of the streams
promising that in due time the whole field
would be thoroughly watered.  Tired, but
well pleased with the success of their
experiment, they returned to the farmhouse.

Mr. Trenchard had been absent all the
afternoon.  At tea they told him what they
had done, and he cheerfully assented to their
suggestion that he should go with them to
the ridge and see for himself their irrigation
works.

It was dusk when they started.  The ridge
was at an outlying part of the farm, and as
they strolled across the intervening fields
Eves suddenly exclaimed:

"What's that?"

Some hundreds of yards ahead, a whitish
object, not distinguishable in the dusk, was
moving apparently along the top of the ridge.
In a few seconds it disappeared.

"That was one of they rabbits after
my turmuts, I reckon," said the farmer.
"Terrible mischeevious little mortals they be."

"I say, Bob," cried Eves, "we might have
a rabbit hunt one of these days."

"We've a lot of other things on hand,"
said Templeton, dubiously.  "You see, there's
the tar entanglement, and——"

"There it is again," said Eves, pointing
towards a hedge some distance to the left
beyond the ridge.  "Rabbits don't live in
hedges, do they, Mr. Trenchard?"

"Not as a general rule," replied the farmer,
cautiously; "but there's no saying what
they'll be doing.  He's gone again; we've
frighted him away."

"Well, here you see what we've done,"
said Templeton.  "The dam there holds
back the stream, the water is forced to rise,
and it's now finding its way over the ridge
in many little rivulets which I daresay by
to-morrow morning will have flowed right
over the field."

"Well to be sure!" said Mr. Trenchard.
"Now that's what I call a downright clever
bit of inventing.  And to think that there
stream hev been a-running along there all
the days of my life, and I never seed no use
for un!  'Twill be the saving of my roots,
young gen'l'men, and I'm much beholden to 'ee."

It was as though a load had been lifted
from the old man's mind.  He was more
cheerful that night than his guests had yet
seen him, and was easily persuaded to join
them and his wife in a rubber of whist.

Early hours were the rule at the farm.  By
nine everybody was in bed but the two
strangers.  They were always the last to
retire.  About ten they had just undressed.
It was a hot, sultry night; the bedroom,
low-pitched and heavily raftered, was stuffy;
and Eves, after blowing out the candle,
pulled up the blind and leant out of the
window to get a breath of what air there was.
The sky was slightly misty, and the moon,
in its last quarter, threw a subdued radiance
upon the country-side.

"By George!" exclaimed Eves, suddenly;
"there's that white thing again."

"What does it matter?" said Templeton,
who was getting into bed.  "We've got to be
up early; come on."

"Come and look here, you owl.  That's no
rabbit.  It's bobbing up and down, just
where the dam is.  I'll be shot if I don't
believe some one's interfering with it."

This suggestion brought Templeton to the
window at once.  Side by side they gazed out
towards the ridge.

"This is serious," said Templeton.  "If
it really is any one interfering with our work——"

"We'll nip him in the bud.  Come on;
don't wait to dress; it's quite warm.  Get
into your slippers.  We'll go out of the back
door without waking the Trenchards and
investigate."

Two minutes later they were stealing along
under cover of the hedge that skirted the
field to be irrigated.  Arriving at the ridge
some distance above the dam they turned to
the left, and bending double crept towards
the scene of their toil.  There, rising erect,
they saw Mr. Noakes up to his thighs in the
stream, hard at work pulling away stones
and earth from the dam.

The water was already gurgling through.

"Hi there!  What the dickens are you up
to?" Templeton cried.

The man turned with a start, and faced
them.  He appeared to be undecided what to do.

"What are you about?" repeated Templeton,
indignantly.  "What right have you to
destroy our dam?"

"What right!" said the man, indignant
in his turn.  He was still in the water, and,
leaning back against the dam, he faced the
lads in the misty moonlight.  "What right
hev you two young fellers, strangers in the
parish, to play yer mischeevious pranks here?
'Tis against the law to interfere wi' the
waterways o' the nation, and the Polstead folk
hev their rights, and they'll stick to 'em.
Ay, and I hev my rights, too, and I'm a known
man in the parish.  This here stream
purvides me wi' washing water, and to-morrow's
washing day.  You dam up my water; I
can't wash; that's where the right do come in."

"My dear sir," said Eves, gravely, "however
much you want washing, and however
much it is to the interest of your neighbours
that you should wash, the interests of our
food supply, you must admit as a patriotic
man, are more important.  Wash by all
means—to-morrow, when the dam, having
done its work, will no doubt be removed.
For my part, I have a distinct bias in favour
of cleanliness.  If a man can't be decent
in other things, let him at least be clean.
There was young Barker, now, a wretched
little scug who wore his hair long, and always
had a high-water mark round his neck.  My
friend Templeton, of whose ingenuity you
have seen proofs, had an excellent invention
for an automatic hair-cutter.  But I am
wandering from the point, which was, in a
word, how to be happy though clean——"

Eves was becoming breathless.  He
wondered whether he could hold out.  Templeton
gazed at him with astonishment; as for Mr.
Noakes, he looked angry, puzzled, utterly at
sea.  Once or twice during Eves's oratorical
performance he opened his mouth to speak,
but Eves fixed him with his eyes, and held
up a warning hand, and overwhelmed him
with his volubility.

"Yes, how to be happy though clean,"
Eves went on; "there's a text for you.
Cleanliness is an acquired taste, like smoking.
The mewling infant, with soapsuds in his
eyes, rages like the heathen.  The schoolboy,
panting from his first immersion—my hat!"

The expected had happened.  During
Eves's harangue, the water had been eating
away the pile of soil and rubbish which had
been loosened by Mr. Noakes's exertions.
Without warning, the dam against which
the man was leaning gave way.  He fell
backward; there was a swirl and a flurry, and
Mr. Noakes, carried off his feet by the rush
of water, was rolled down stream.  His new
soft straw hat, which had betrayed him,
floated on ahead.

Templeton sprang over the ridge and
hastened to Mr. Noakes's assistance.  For
the moment Eves was incapacitated by
laughter.  Fortunately the stream was not
deep, and after the first spate it flowed on
with less turbulence.  Templeton gripped
the unhappy man by the collar, and hauled
him up after he had been tumbled a few yards.
Breathless, he stood a pitiable object in his
frock-coat and baggy trousers, his lank hair
shedding cascades.

.. _`"TEMPLETON GRIPPED THE UNHAPPY MAN BY THE COLLAR, AND HAULED HIM UP"`:

.. figure:: images/img-076.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "TEMPLETON GRIPPED THE UNHAPPY MAN BY THE COLLAR, AND HAULED HIM UP."

   "TEMPLETON GRIPPED THE UNHAPPY MAN BY THE COLLAR, AND HAULED HIM UP."

"A most unfortunate accident," said
Templeton.  "You see, by removing some
of the stones——"

"Mr. Noakes, your hat, I believe,"
interposed Eves, handing him the sodden,
shapeless object which he had retrieved from the
stream.  Mr. Noakes snatched it from him,
turned away, and started downhill.  Never
a word had he said; but there was a world of
malevolence in his eye.

"We had better get back and dress," said
Templeton.

"What on earth for?"

"Well, we can hardly repair the dam in
our pyjamas."

Eves laughed.

"You're a priceless old fathead," he said.
"Repairs must wait till the morning.  I can
never do any work after a rag."

"A rag!  But it was a pure accident, due
to the idiot's own meddlesomeness."

"Most true; but it wouldn't have happened
if I hadn't kept his attention fixed by
the longest spell of spouting I ever did in my
life.  It was a ripping rag, old man, and now
we'll toddle back to bed.  The one thing that
beats me is, what's his motive?  He'd hardly
take the trouble to smash our dam just to get
even with us, would he?  That's a kid's
trick.  There's something very fishy about
old Noakes."


.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   III

.. vspace:: 2

Templeton had not settled which among
his many ideas to work at, when accident
launched his imagination upon a new flight.

One day the village was stirred to unusual
excitement.  Two items of local news,
following quickly one upon the other, gave the
folk so much matter for gossip that the
amount of work they did was reduced fifty
per cent.  The first was that Nahum Noakes's
final appeal had failed; the second, that
young Wilfred Banks, the son of Squire Banks,
one of the local magnates, had been seriously
injured by the fall of an aeroplane.

Mrs. Trenchard, having been "there and
back," was full of the story.

"Ay me, to think of a nice pleasant young
gentleman like Mr. Wilfred lying at death's
door through one o' they dratted airyplanes!
That venturesome he always was, as a little
small chiel.  'Tis against Nature to try to fly
like the birds, that's what I say, and what can
you expect?  The world do be turning
topsy-turvy, and all through they Germans."

That night, just as Eves had turned over to
sleep, he was roused by a call from Templeton
in his companion bed.

"What is it?" he murmured, drowsily.

"I've got an idea," was the reply.

"Well, sleep on it, old man."

"You know very well that I can't get a
wink till I see daylight."

"Then you've got about five hours.  Good night!"

"Of course I meant a light on the problem;
you're so literal.  You see, the evolution of a
perfectly stable machine——"

Eves interrupted with a groan.

"I suppose I must be a martyr," he said,
"but I wish you'd arrange for your ideas to
come in the morning.  Fire away!  I'll keep
awake if I can, but cut it short."

"You're a good sort, Tom.  Really I'd
like to know what you think of it.  You see,
an aeroplane ought to balance itself
automatically, and I've got an idea for
automatically adjusting the surfaces of the planes so
that the machine will instantly adapt
itself to gusts of wind, side-slips, and so on."

"Jolly good idea!  Good night."

"Hold hard.  You haven't heard the idea
yet.  My arrangement would be electric.
Beyond the extremities of the frames I'd have
a light framework on which an extension of
the plane could be pushed out by a steel rod
actuated by a small electric motor."

"I can go to sleep at once, then, because
that won't work.  It means more weight."

"No, no; we'll argue it out.  Weight's
becoming less and less important every day.
Look at the weight of bombs an aeroplane
can now lift.  Anyhow, the point is that the
motor would be controlled by the movement
of the plane.  A sphere moving in a
horizontal channel would be affected by the
slightest inclination of the plane.  I'd arrange
by a series of electrical contacts——"

"How?"

"I haven't worked out all the details yet;
how could I?  But the effect would be that
the farther the sphere moved the farther the
rod would push out the extension of the plane
on the side required.  And when the aeroplane
had righted itself, the sphere would
return to neutral."

"My sleepy brain is fairly dazed with your
rods and spheres and the rest.  Hang all
that!  The question is, would the extension
idea work?  Would the lengthening of the
planes meet the case?"

"Of course it would.  It's easily proved.
All you want is a glider."

"Well, old man, the idea's ripping, and
being a reasonable chap, you'll agree that
you've got to go one step at a time.  I don't
say you're wrong, but treat me as a bit of a
sceptic, who wants everything proved."

"Very well; I'm not unreasonable.  We'll
set to work and make a glider; then you'll see."

"Righto!  Feel more easy now?  Hope
you won't wake in the night."

Templeton was just dozing off when from
Eves there came:

"I say, Bob."

"What?"

"You'll have to cut into your tenner at
last.  Bye-bye!"

.. vspace:: 2

During the next week they did very little
"work on the land."  Farmer Trenchard,
impressed as usual by Templeton's earnestness,
allowed them as much leave as they
wanted, and they devoted themselves during
the hours of daylight to the manufacture
of a glider.  A journey to the nearest town
and the cashing of the £10 note furnished
them with the wood and the textile fabric
they needed, and Templeton had sufficient
skill in carpentry to fashion two wings, light
enough for his purpose, yet strong enough
to sustain him.  His funds would not run
to an electric motor, but he thought that,
for his first experiments, the lengthening
rod might be actuated by stout cords running
over pulleys.

The contrivance was finished after a week's
hard work.  Tested in the farmyard, the
lengthening apparatus worked smoothly; it
only remained to try it in the air.  Templeton
had already marked a suitable spot for the
trial—a sloping field some little distance from
the farm, too steep for cultivation, and
occupied usually by cattle fattening for
Coggins, the butcher.  It was enclosed by a
thick hedge except at the gate, and that was
kept locked, and blocked with brushwood.

"I think perhaps we had better ask
Coggins's leave to use his field," suggested
Templeton.

"Don't do anything of the sort," replied
Eves.  "We don't want a crowd of yokels
looking on.  If the thing goes all right, you
can invite the village to an exhibition."

The morning chosen for the trial was warm
and still.  No danger from gusts of wind was
to be anticipated.  Mounting the glider on
two wheels from the old tricycle, patched up
for the occasion, they wheeled it up to the
field and managed with some difficulty to
hoist it over the gate, after having cleared
a way through the obstructing brushwood.
At the far end a few cattle were peacefully
grazing.  The well-cropped hill was a smooth
inclined plane of springy turf.

They carried the machine to the top.

"I bag first go," said Eves.

"No, I can't agree to that," said Templeton.
"You see, though I'm pretty sure it
will work all right, there's bound to be a
certain risk, and as it's my idea I ought to
test it."

"That's no reason at all.  Cooks never eat
their own cake.  Besides, if there is an
accident, much better it should happen to me
than you.  *I'm* not an inventor."

"I still maintain——"

"Oh, don't let's waste time.  Let's toss for
it.  Heads me, tails you.  A use for my
half-penny at last.  Here goes."

He spun the coin.

"Heads!  There you are.  Now fasten
the straps on my shoulders, and give me a
gentle shove off."

The glider was not fastened to the wheels,
Templeton's theory being that, having been
started on them at the top of the hill, it would
almost at once gain "lift" from the air.  So
it proved.  After a few yards it rose slightly;
a little farther on it was quite clear of the
ground, and Eves, with legs bent and arms
stretched out on the wings, enjoyed for a few
brief seconds the exhilaration of aerial flight.
Then, however, it began to tilt.  Mindful of
Templeton's careful instructions and the
preliminary test in the farmyard, Eves tugged
at the appointed rope, which should have
thrown out an extension of the wing, and,
according to Templeton's theory, have
restored the balance.  Unhappily the
mechanism that had worked so smoothly before now
proved treacherous.  The machine swerved
to the left, and crashed into a bramble-bush
in the hedge at the foot of the hill.

Templeton rushed down in great agitation,
sprang into the hedge regardless of scratches,
unloosed the straps, and hauled Eves out.

"I say, you're not hurt, old man?" he
asked, anxiously.

"I'm pretty well pricked, confound the
thing!" said Eves.  "The wretched cord jammed."

"But the theory's all right."

"Hang the theory!  Look here, old man—  Hullo,
here's old Noakes."

Noakes, accompanied by a thick-set
countryman in corduroys and leggings, had
come over the crest of the hill just as the
accident occurred, and run down almost on
Templeton's heels.

"I've cotched 'ee," he cried, panting.
"You're my witness, Ted Smail.  Cotched in
the act, the mischeevious young vipers.  I'll
have the law of un."

.. _`"'I'VE COTCHED 'EE,' HE CRIED"`:

.. figure:: images/img-085.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'I'VE COTCHED 'EE,' HE CRIED."

   "'I'VE COTCHED 'EE,' HE CRIED."

"My dear sir, I don't think it has anything
to do with you," said Templeton.  "My
friend, as you see——"

"Your friend, and you too, be a-trespassing
on my field and a-ruining my property, and
the law'll have something to say about that."

"Ruined a bramble-bush!" said Templeton.

"And the bush has ruined my clothes,"
Eves added.

"That there's my hedge, and you've been
and knocked a hole in it, and——"

At this moment his tirade was suddenly
interrupted by a bellow behind him.  A bull,
excited by the vagaries of the glider, had
trotted up from the far end of the field to
investigate, and further roused, probably, by
Noakes's loud tones and waving arms, threw
down its head and charged.  The men
scattered.  Eves and Templeton made for the
gate and vaulted over.  Noakes ran one way,
his friend another.  The bull plunged straight
at the glider, sticking in the hedge, and
smashed it to splinters.  Then it dashed after
Noakes, who, seeing no other outlet, flung
himself into the ditch below the hedge and
scrambled through the tangled lower branches
only just in time to escape the animal's horns.

"We must offer to pay Noakes for the
damage," said Templeton.

"Rot!  We haven't done tuppence-ha'-penny
worth; and how do we know it's his field?"

"I'm sure he wouldn't say so if it wasn't,
and there's certainly a hole in the hedge.
I'll just see what he says."

Noakes, hatless, dishevelled, and scratched,
was coming towards them.

"I'm willing to pay any reasonable sum for
damages, Mr. Noakes," said Templeton.

"Are ye?" replied the man with a grin.
"I be main glad to hear it.  You shall have
the bill, don't 'ee make no mistake about that.
But I won't take no money 'cept by judge
and jury."

He passed on, and stood at the gate until
his friend should find it convenient to join him.

Two days later Constable Haylock came to
the farm, and, with an apologetic air, handed
to Eves and Templeton each a blue document,
summoning them to appear at the justice
court to answer a plaint of trespass and
damage on the part of Philemon Noakes.

"This is serious," said Templeton.  "You
see, we've no defence.  We did break his
hedge and disturb his tenant's cattle, as he
says.  I wonder what the penalty is?"

"A fine of £5, old man, I expect," said
Eves, cheerfully.  "Don't you worry; I did
the damage, and I can't pay."

"I'm sure *I* can't.  That glider cost
£7 16*s.* 4*d*.  I haven't half £5."

"Well, they'll give us seven days C.B., or
whatever they call it, and you'll have to write
to Aunt Caroline to bail us out.  Jolly good
idea!  We'll be able to give her tips in food
economy after a week of prison fare."

"It's no joking matter.  She'll be upset;
no Templeton of our family has ever been in
prison."

"You don't say so!  You'll make a record,
then.  Splendid!"

.. vspace:: 2

On the appointed day they appeared before
the justice.

"'Tis Squire Banks's day," whispered
Haylock as they passed him at the door.  "He
baint such a hanging judge, so to speak it, as
Sir Timothy."

Noakes gave his evidence, Smail corroborated
it, and Squire Banks asked the culprits
what they had to say in their defence.

"It was like this, sir," began Eves, before
Templeton could start; "my friend
Templeton devotes a lot of time to trying
experiments—working out ideas for useful
inventions.  When he heard of that accident to a
flying man the other day"—the old gentleman
looked interested—"he kept me awake
at night talking over an idea for making an
aeroplane automatically safe.  I confess I
was sceptical, and it's my fault all this
happened, because it was to prove his theory
to me that he made a glider; it cost him over
£7, sir; and we couldn't find a better place
to try it on than that hilly field.  I'm afraid
I was clumsy; at any rate, the thing came
to grief——"

"But the principle of it is quite sound,"
Templeton put in.

"But, of course, you're not concerned with
principles here, sir, but only with law," Eves
went on.  "We didn't know the field belonged
to Mr. Noakes, or I assure you we wouldn't
have touched it with a pole, and as to damage,
my friend offered to pay any reasonable sum."

"But didn't I understand that you caused
the damage?" the squire interposed, his
eyes twinkling.  "That being the case, ought
not the offer to pay have come from you?"

"I'm afraid it ought, sir; but—well, I've
only got four and elevenpence halfpenny."

There were smiles in the court at this
ingenuous confession.

"Well, Mr. Templeton offered to pay," the
squire went on.  "What then?"

"Mr. Noakes wouldn't hear of it, sir," Eves
answered.

"Is that so, Noakes?"

Noakes had to confess that it was.

"Come, now, Noakes, brambles grow very
fast, and any hedger will close the gap for
eightpence.  It's a trumpery matter.  You
young fellows can pay half-a-crown between
you for the damage, and Noakes must pay his
own costs; it's an unreasonable action.  Call
the next case."

"Jolly old trump!" said Eves as they
went out.  "And I'm jolly glad the old boy's
son is getting better."

On reaching the farm, Templeton found
awaiting him a letter from his aunt, written
in reply to one he had sent her more than a
week before.  She explained the long delay
by the fact that the letter had pursued her
through three counties.  "I am delighted to
hear," she wrote, "that you have not yet
spent *any* of the money I sent you.  It shows
great *strength of character*.  You will be
pleased to hear that my lectures are a *great
success*.  I expect to reach Polstead in about
ten days, and I shall be so glad if you will
do a little thing to prepare my way.  My
lectures are *thoroughly practical*; it is useless
to talk about economical foods if the dear
people cannot procure them.  I want you
to see Mr. Philemon Noakes for me; he is
the *principal tradesman* in the village; and
ask him if he will *very kindly* lay in a stock
of certain *cheap* articles of which I will send
you a list.  A personal interview is so much
more satisfactory than a formal letter, and
you will find Mr. Noakes a *very civil and
obliging person*."

"My hat!" cried Eves, laughing.  "What
a rag!  I'll come with you, old man."

Templeton looked worried.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A GAS ATTACK`:

.. class:: center large bold

   A GAS ATTACK

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   I

.. vspace:: 2

Mr. Noakes made no further attempt
to interfere with the irrigation of Farmer
Trenchard's fields.  The two lads repaired
the dam, gave the parched ground a thorough
soaking for two days and nights, then
demolished the simple structure and allowed
the stream to pursue its usual course.

Templeton, meanwhile, had been anxiously
weighing the claims of the other ideas that
jostled in his brain.  He wanted to perfect
his automatic hair-cutter; to experiment with
what he called, in advance, a "levitator"—a
contrivance for enabling an aeroplane to
rise more rapidly; to test his notion of a
tar entanglement, and various other sound
schemes.  Unfortunately the incomplete
hair-cutter had been confiscated by his head
master, and it would take weeks to construct
a new one.  The levitator was out of the
question at present, for it would cost a good
deal more than the two pounds odd which
remained out of his aunt's gift.  Several
ideas were unworkable for the same reason,
and he had almost resolved on the tar
entanglement when, with that suddenness to
which inventors are accustomed, a quite
new idea shot into his mind.

He had been reading, in a war correspondent's
dispatch, about the star shells and
Verey lights which were used at night to
throw a fitful illumination upon the hostile
lines.  Eves noticed that as he cleaned his
teeth before going to bed he made frequent
pauses, holding the tooth-brush motionless
for some moments at a time.

"What's up, old man?" asked Eves, who
was already in bed.  "Got toothache?"

"No; I was thinking," replied Templeton,
rubbing again.  "You see——"

"But I can't hear through the bristles.
Hurry up, or I shall be asleep."

Templeton finished his toilet, blew out the
light, and got into bed, sitting up and clasping
his knees.

"Those flash-lights, you know—they don't
last long enough.  What our fellows want is
some continuous illumination."

"What about the moon?"

"You know perfectly well the moon doesn't
shine for half the month."

"I thought perhaps you'd invented an
artificial moon.  But expound, old bird."

"Well, you know the prevailing wind in
winter is from the west.  Why shouldn't our
men start relays of light balloons——"

"Balloons always are light."

"I mean light-giving balloons.  They'd
float over the German lines and illuminate
their whole positions with a steady continuous
light."

"The Huns would shoot 'em down."

"Not easily, for they'd be dark."

"Light and dark at the same time!  Go
on, Bobby; I'm sure you can prove black's white."

"If you wouldn't interrupt, you'd see.  The
illuminant would be attached to the balloon
by a long cord, and there'd be a shade like a
lampshade over it, so that the balloon itself
would be in darkness.  It's easy enough to try."

"How?"

"All you want is a dozen toy balloons, a
few cubic feet of hydrogen, a slow match, and
a little magnesium wire.  There you have it
on a small scale.  Fill the balloons with
hydrogen, tie 'em together, fasten a slow
match and a bit of wire to each, light the
match, and send the whole caboodle up."

"But magnesium wire only burns for a
second or two."

"You really are an ass, Tom.  We'd only
use magnesium wire for our experiment; there
are heaps of things that could be used with
big balloons at the front."

"You mean to try it, then?"

"Of course.  Old Noakes has some toy balloons."

"But what about the hydrogen?  It
doesn't smell, does it?"

"No.  Why?"

"Only that I forget all my chemistry
except the stinks.  How do you make it?"

"By the action of an acid on a metal.
Don't you remember Zn + H2SO4 = ZnSO4
+ H2?  Iron will do as well."

"That's easy enough, then.  But you'll
want retorts, wash bottles, pneumatic
troughs, and goodness knows what else.
Bang goes the rest of your cash, Bob."

"Nonsense!  Mother Trenchard has some
old pickle bottles, and we're not out to make
a specially pure gas.  All we'll have to buy
will be a little acid, a few feet of glass tubing,
and a rubber cork or two.  Four or five
shillings will buy the lot.  We shall have to go to
Weymouth for them."

"Righto!  That's a day off to-morrow."

The morning post brought a letter from
Aunt Caroline enclosing a list of foods which
she wished Mr. Noakes to stock.  Templeton
read it solemnly, and handed it to Eves.

"I say, Mrs. Trenchard, what do you think
of this?" cried Eves.  "Things Bob's aunt
is going to lecture about, you know.  Haricot
beans——"

"They want a deal of cooking, Mr. Eves,"
said Mrs. Trenchard.  "You must soak 'em
overnight, and boil 'em hours and hours.  I
have my doubts whether the village folk can
spare the time."

"Well, here's dried peas."

"Do 'ee think the women 'll use 'em dried
when the shucks are full of green?  What can
Miss Caroline be thinking of?"

"Tinned eggs, then."

"Lawk-a-mussy, I was silly enough to buy
one o' they tins once, and when I opened
it—there now, never in my life did I come so
near fainting afore, and me not a fainting
sort, the smell was so terrible.  If that be the
kind of thing Miss Caroline's cook do give her,
'tis time I was back in my old place, that it be."

Eves laughed as he handed the list back to
Templeton.

"There are a dozen more things," he said;
"if they're all as good, old man, Aunt
Caroline will get a shock when she's heckled."

"Bless 'ee, sir, and who'll be so bold?"
said Mrs. Trenchard.  "Folks 'll listen, ay
sure, as meek as lambs; but buy them
things—never in the world."

"Well, Bob, you must take the list to
Noakes.  You must do something for your
tenner.  Tell you what: I'll go to Weymouth
for the chemicals and things.  By the time
I'm back you'll have seen Noakes and got the
bottles and other things ready.  Noakes
wouldn't serve me, I'm sure."

So it was arranged.  Eves hurried through
his breakfast and just caught the carrier's
cart that conveyed passengers to the junction.
Templeton finished leisurely, and then, not
much liking his job, walked down to the village
to interview Noakes.  As he came to the shop
door he heard Noakes addressing a customer.

"No, I tell 'ee, you can't have no sugar
without you buy tea and bacon."

"But 'twas only the day afore yesterday I
bought my quarter of tea, sir," said a woman's
voice, plaintively; "and I must have sugar
to stew my plums for the children's dinner."

"Bain't no good you standing there
whining about yer children.  No sugar without
t'other things; that's my last word to 'ee."

"Excuse me," said Templeton, entering the
shop.  "Is there a new order from the Food
Controller?  If I'm not mistaken, there have
been several prosecutions lately of——"

"Now look 'ee here," cried Noakes,
angrily, "I bain't a-going to stand no more
nonsense from you.  Who be you, I'd like
to know, coming and ordering me about in
my own shop?"

"Far from it, Mr. Noakes.  I only wished
to give you a hint that your customer is
entitled to buy sugar without any conditions,
and it's silly to put yourself in the wrong."

Noakes glowered and blustered, but
previous experience of Templeton's determination
had taught him a lesson, and ultimately
he served the woman with a half-pound of sugar.

"I want half a dozen of those toy balloons,"
said Templeton.

"They bain't for sale," growled Noakes.

"Indeed!  You hang them up as ornaments,
I suppose.  Perhaps you'll sell me
some if I buy some sugar, say."

"Get out of my shop," cried Noakes,
furiously.  "I tell 'ee I won't serve 'ee, and
I won't have you imperent young fellers in
my shop at all, so now you know it."

Templeton shrugged his shoulders.  Taking
his aunt's letter from his pocket, he opened it,
and said:

"There must be a mistake.  My aunt says
that the principal tradesman is a very civil
and obliging person.  You know her—Miss
Caroline Templeton.  She is coming down in
a few days to lecture on food economy, and
wants you to lay in a stock of various things
of which I have a list.  But perhaps she is
referring to somebody else, and it's no good
bothering you."

At the mention of Miss Templeton's name
an uneasy look settled upon Noakes's face.
He watched Templeton replace the letter in
his pocket, then said hesitatingly, in a milder
tone:

"When be the lady coming, sir?"

"In ten days or so, and as the letter was
written some days ago, it may be under a
week from now."

The look of uneasiness gave way to a smile.
Noakes turned his back, and Templeton,
resolving to have nothing more to do with the
man, left the shop.


.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   II

.. vspace:: 2

Thinking it probable that he might get
some balloons at the nearest village about
five miles away, Templeton set off to walk
there.  Eves would not be back till the
afternoon; there was plenty of time.  As he left
the shop he met the man Smail, who had
been in Noakes's company on the day of the
experiment with the glider.  The man leered
at him and passed on.

When Templeton, unsuccessful in his quest,
returned to the farm at midday, he found
Mrs. Trenchard in a state of great agitation.

"Oh, Mr. Templeton," she cried, bursting
into tears, "to think I've lived to see this day!"

"Why, what's the matter, Mrs. Trenchard?"
he asked.

"He's there, sir," she nodded towards her
husband's little den, "and 'tis ruin to us, and
we'll have to go to work'us, and my poor
Joe——"

"Come, Mrs. Trenchard, don't be upset.
Just tell me all about it.  Nothing has
happened to Mr. Trenchard, I hope?"

"Only a broken heart, sir.  Ah! if he'd
only telled me afore!  We've had bad times,
as you know, sir; 'twas worse than I knew,
and my poor man kep' it all to himself, so's
not to worrit me.  He went and borrowed
money of Mr. Noakes, sir, to tide him over
harvest.  I don't know the rights of it; 'tis
too much for my poor head; but by what I can
make of it Trenchard signed a paper to say as
if he didn't pay back the money by a certain
time the farm 'ud belong to Mr. Noakes, and
a week afore the time Mr. Noakes could put
a man in to see as we didn't rob him.  And
he's in now, sir, in there—'tis Ted Smail, a
rascal of a man as knocks his poor wife about.
And what I'll do, Them above only knows."

"Can't Mr. Trenchard turn him out?"
asked Templeton.

"'Tis the law, sir; Trenchard owned it all,
poor man, and axed my pardon, he did, for
bringing it on me.  Ah! if he'd only telled
me afore!  A week's such a little time to get
all that money.  When he telled me, wi' tears
in his eyes, I said,  'Now just you run up along
to Lunnon and see your brother, as keeps a
public-house and is rolling in money.  He'll
help 'ee, and I'll work myself to skin and bone
to pay him back.'  And he'd just time to
catch the train at the junction, and if his
brother be hard, as some be, there's nothing
but the work'us for us."

"Cheer up, Mrs. Trenchard.  Let's hope
for the best.  I'll talk it over with Eves when
he gets back, and we'll see what can be done."

"Thank 'ee kindly, sir, but don't 'ee go
against the law.  The law be a terrible creature."

In the afternoon Eves returned with his purchases.

"There you are, old man," he cried,
"acid, stoppers, and tubing.  You've got the
balloons?"

"No.  I say, Tom, this experiment's off
for the time; things here are in a deuce of a mess."

He gave an outline of the domestic troubles.

"Whew!" Eves whistled.  "So that's old
Noakes's game.  That throws a flood of light
on the old villain's doings.  But we'll dish
him yet.  The first thing is to get this fellow
Smail out of the place.  That will make the
old woman feel a little easier."

"I don't see how we can do that.  Trenchard
signed the deed or whatever it's called, and
you may be sure that Noakes kept on the
right side of the law."

"Well, let's go and see."

They opened the door of the farmer's little
room, and beheld Smail lying on his back on
the sofa placidly smoking a very rank tobacco.
On a chair was a basket of provisions and
several bottles of beer.

"I say, my man," said Eves, "your boots
are rather dirty, you know."

Smail closed one eye and said nothing.

"Mrs. Trenchard doesn't like it, you
know," Eves went on.  "Don't you think
you'd better go?"

The man was still silent.  Eves mutely
consulted Templeton.  Smail was a big,
thick-set fellow; a physical struggle with him
might end in disaster.

"Look here, how much do you want to
go?" asked Eves.  ("I've got some change,"
he whispered to Templeton.)

Then the man spoke.  Winking and waving
his pipe, he declared, hoarsely:

"Here I be, and here I bide."

"We'll give you ten shillings," said Eves.

"Here I be, and here I bide."

"Oh, all right, bide away," said Eves,
taking Templeton by the arm.  "Rotten
tobacco, ain't it, Bob?"

They returned to the other room and sat down.

"We can't starve him out," said Eves.
"The beggar's got grub enough for a week."

"If we could only entice him out it would
be all right," said Templeton, "because I
believe I've read somewhere that a bailiff or
whatever you call him can't legally force his
way into a house."

"Well, only beer would entice that sort of
bounder, and he's got plenty of that.  He's a
big hulk, but we *might* manage to chuck him out."

"Dangerous that.  Even if we succeeded,
we might find ourselves in court again."

Eves stuck out his legs and pondered.
Suddenly he sat up straight.

"By Jove, I've got it!" he cried.  "We'll
stink him out."

"How do you mean?  It would have to be
a powerful stink to upset a fellow who can
smoke that tobacco."

"Of course; and I haven't wasted my time
in the lab, old man.  I never took any
interest in chemistry till I learnt how to make
stinks.  What about H2S?  The very thing.
Splendid!  We've got the acid; all we want
is—by Jove! where can we get some iron
pyrites?  That means another trip to Weymouth."

"And you probably won't get it there."

"Hang it all; can't we make it some other way?"

"Wait a bit.  Don't you remember old
Peters making it once by boiling sulphur with
tallow?  And he told us you get a more
steady flow of gas that way.  We've probably
got all we want on the premises.  But how
are you going to get it into the room?"

"We'll have to find a way.  Let's go and
investigate."

Inquiry of Mrs. Trenchard elicited the
information that her store cupboard ran along
the whole length of the room in which Smail
had made himself at home.  The wall between
them was rather thick, but it would certainly
not be impossible to pierce a hole in it.

"Splendid!" said Eves.  "We can make
the gas in the store cupboard, and pass it
into the room through one of our tubes.  Of
course, we'll have to lock the man in."

"The gas won't drive him out of the
window," said Templeton.  "In fact, if he
keeps that open the smell will never be
strong enough."

"You may be sure the window won't be
open.  A fellow of that sort revels in fug.
No doubt he'll take an afternoon nap
to-morrow.  That'll be our time.  He'll wake
up choking, and if I know my man he'll
make a dash for the window and tumble
out into the open—by the way, I suppose the
gas won't actually poison him?"

"No; the worst effect, I believe, is sickness
and dizziness.  We had better start boring
our hole to-night, when he's asleep.  If we're
careful he won't hear us."

"We must get Mother Trenchard to take
out her stores.  Shall we tell her why?"

"Better not.  I'll just say we want to
try an experiment."

Mrs. Trenchard somewhat reluctantly
agreed to remove her stores for a short time.
From her they obtained a quantity of tallow
and a few sticks of brimstone, and in the
privacy of their bedroom they broke up and
pulverised one of the sticks, and boiled a little
of the sulphur powder with tallow in a tin.

"Ripping stink," said Eves, putting his
head out of the window.  "It's going to work
A1.  We'll pound up the rest of the brimstone,
and then wait for night.  This is the
stuff to give friend Smail.  It will bring
him to his senses right enough."

"More likely it'll take his senses away from
him to begin with," answered his
fellow-conspirator.  "But it won't do him any real
harm.  Phew, what an aroma!"

After dark, when loud snores from the room
proclaimed that its occupant was asleep, they
bored a couple of holes in the partition wall
with a brace and bit obtained from Constable
Haylock, who was something of a carpenter.

"I'll lend 'em to 'ee with pleasure, sir," he
said when Eves requested the loan, "purvided
'tis for a legal objeck.  As a servant of the
nation, 'tud be my ruin if so be you was
committing a felony."

"That's all right, constable," replied Eves.
"We're only going to bore a couple of holes
for Mrs. Trenchard."

After an hour's careful work there were two
small holes in the wall, about six niches apart
and a few inches above the floor, just under
the sofa.  Satisfied that all was now ready for
the morrow's experiment, the lads went to bed.

Next afternoon Templeton assured himself,
by a peep from the outside through the closed
window, that Smail had settled himself on the
sofa to sleep over his heavy midday meal.
Eves then quietly opened the door, abstracted
the key, and locked the door from the outside.
Their simple apparatus was already fitted up
in the store cupboard—an old saucepan over
a spirit lamp, with two holes in the lid
through which they had passed two lengths
of glass tubing, the other ends of which
projected slightly into the room.  Their next
move was to lock all the house doors, except
one leading to the garden at the back.  By
this time they had found it necessary to tell
Mrs. Trenchard what they were about, and
she was rather timorously awaiting results.

"Whatever you do, Mrs. Trenchard, don't
open the door to the fellow after we get him
out," said Eves, impressively.  "Templeton
says he can't legally force his way in, so keep
the doors shut and leave the rest to us."

Templeton lit the spirit lamp and closed
the store-room door.  In a few minutes the
nauseating fumes of sulphuretted hydrogen
stole through the cracks into the passage.

"Gracious goodness, we'll all be poisoned!"
cried Mrs. Trenchard.

"No, it's quite harmless, I assure you,
though rather horrid," said Eves.  "Look
here, Bob, you paste some strips of paper
over the cracks while I go outside and see
how things are getting on."

He went out of the back door, hastened
round to the front, and peeped in at the
window.  Smail was sleeping on his back
with his mouth open, one hand dangling over
the side of the sofa.  The gas being colourless,
Eves had no evidence that the experiment
was working until he put his nose to the lower
sill and got a faint whiff of the fetid odour.
Minute after minute passed, and there was no
sign that the gas was having any effect on the
sleeper.  At last, however, he stirred, sniffed,
and looked round the room.  Then he got up,
looked under the table, under the sofa,
examined his basket of provisions, turned up
on end two empty beer bottles.  Seized with
a fit of coughing, he made for the door, tugged
at the handle, shouted, then dashed to the
window, pulled back the catch, tumbled out,
and ran towards the front entrance.

Eves had slipped out of sight, but the
moment the man's back was turned he ran to
the window, sprang on to the sill, and braving
the fumes, prepared to dispute any attempt
to re-enter by the same way.

Meanwhile Smail was thundering at the
front door, mingling curses with cries to be
let in.  At this signal that the experiment had
succeeded, Templeton threw open the door of
the store cupboard, extinguished the lamp,
and asked Mrs. Trenchard to open all the
inner doors and the upper windows, so as to
clear the air.

Finding the front door closed to him,
Smail returned to the window.  Eves had
now entered the room and stood at the
window, holding a poker.  Smail approached
him, scowling and squaring his fists.

"Just you come out o' that, you young
viper," he cried.  "You've a-tried to pison
me, and I'll have the law of 'ee.  That there
room's my room for now; 'tis the law; so get out."

"Here I be, and here I bide," said Eves,
brandishing the poker.  "Don't come too
near, Mr. Smail.  You know so much about
the law that you'll be aware you're
committing a felony if you try to force your way
in.  You don't want to go to quod again,
Mr. Smail, I'm sure.  Besides, I don't think
your head's hard enough to stand a whack
from this poker."

.. _`"'HERE I BE, AND HERE I BIDE,' SAID EVES, BRANDISHING THE POKER"`:

.. figure:: images/img-111.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'HERE I BE, AND HERE I BIDE,' SAID EVES, BRANDISHING THE POKER."

   "'HERE I BE, AND HERE I BIDE,' SAID EVES, BRANDISHING THE POKER."

"I say, Tom, don't be violent," said
Templeton, coming up behind him.

"I'm just explaining," replied Eves.  "Cut
down to the village, Bob, and fetch old
Haylock.  He'll expound the law to Mr. Smail."

Smail spluttered and cursed, but he was
evidently doubtful on the point of law, and
after standing irresolutely in front of the
window for a minute or so he turned on his
heel and shambled out through the gate.

"Splendid, old man!" cried Eves.
"There's no law that I know against making
a stink, and he went out of his own accord."

"That's all very well, but the important
thing is, will old Trenchard be able to raise
enough money to pay off Noakes?  I wish
Aunt Caroline were here.  She'd be able to
advise; she's had a good deal to do with
lawyers, one way and another.  If I knew
where she was I'd wire her."

"Well, all we've to do at present is to keep
Smail and Noakes out till the farmer gets
back.  From what I make of it, Trenchard
still has a few days' grace before his debt to
Noakes becomes due, and anything may
happen in that time."


.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   III

.. vspace:: 2

They kept a close watch on the house all
the rest of the day.  At night all the doors and
windows were bolted, and Eves took turns
with Templeton to mount guard.  The latter
was by no means sure of the legal position;
it might be that he was mistaken, and that a
forcible entry would not be a breach of the
law.  The night was undisturbed, and next
morning Eves, leaving Templeton to keep
watch, went down to the village to consult
Constable Haylock.

"Can a bailiff, or whatever you call him,
force his way into a house?" he asked,
meeting the constable near the bridge.

"Well now, that's queer, danged if it
bain't," said the constable.  "I've been
axed that very same question a'ready this
morning.  It do seem there's debts and
executions in the wind, and folks come to
me, as stands for law and justice, to know
their true rights."

"They couldn't come to a better man, I'm
sure," said Eves.  "Was it old Noakes who
asked you?"

"Now, sir, if you axe me to tell state
secrets, I couldn't do it—no, not for a judge
or royal highness.  I name no names; but
I'll tell 'ee what I said to them as axed me,
that being law for rich and poor.  'Force
yer way in,' says I, 'and you would be
imprisoned without the auction o' fine, 'cos
the judge med bring it in housebreaking, or
burglary if by night.  But there be other
roads to market,' says I.  'If so be you
comes up quiet and finds some out-o'-the-way
door as bain't the high road, so to speak it,
into the house, and gets yer foot inside—well,
there 'tis; if those inside tries to get yer
foot out 'tis assault and battery, and the fine
forty shilling.'  That's what I said, and I
make no boast, but I defy any man to give
'ee better law nor that, I don't care who the
man is."

"By Jove! you're Solomon and Daniel
rolled up together," said Eves.  "You're a
treasure, constable.  By the way, don't say I
asked about it.  I'm rather hard up myself,
but Mr. Templeton——"

"Not a word, sir, not a word.  Maybe I'll
meet yer friend up along one o' these days;
he's a gentleman and will behave as such."

Eves's face wore a grin when he returned to
the farm.

"Haylock's a priceless old ass, Bob," he
said.  "Noakes has been at him, and he's
given him a tip."

"Who's given who?  Your pronouns are
mixed up," said Templeton.

"Well, you don't suppose Noakes would
tip Haylock; that's for you to do.  What I
meant was that Haylock has given Noakes a
tip how to get into the house without breaking
the law, and you may bet your boots we shall
have Smail up again to-night.  You know
that narrow lane leading up to Trenchard's
coal-shed?  It's hardly ever used.  Any one
might come up there at night, and get in by
the window of the shed.  There's a door
between the shed and the scullery, never
locked, and Smail can easily get into the house
that way."

"You don't mean to say that Haylock put
'em up to that?"

"Of course not; but he told Noakes that if
he can manage to get into the house secretly
when the inmates are off their guard they
can't legally turn him out.  Whether he's
right or wrong I don't know, but you may be
sure it was enough for Noakes."

"Haylock ought to have warned Mrs. Trenchard."

"But Noakes wasn't such a fool as to say
what house he wanted to get into.  He asked
a general question, just as I did.  Well, on
the way up I had a ripping idea.  Your tar
entanglement—just the very thing."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, if it's good enough to stump the
Huns in Flanders it's good enough to spoil old
Noakes's game.  Noakes is sure to think of
the lane.  We'll cover the ground with a layer
of good runny tar some inches deep and a
few feet square, and stretch a few wires
across, and Messrs. Noakes and Smail will
find themselves properly held up.  I know
the very place—just where the lane runs
under the wall of the barn on one side and
a prickly hedge on the other.  They couldn't
go round.  Imagine old Noakes stuck fast
in the tar, like a fly in treacle."

"Where's the tar to come from?"

"There's a barrel in the outhouse;
Trenchard uses it, no doubt, for tarring his
fences.  We could melt that down, and it
would keep sticky a long time this hot
weather."

"But I don't see why we need take all that
trouble.  All we've got to do is to lock the
door between the scullery and the coal-shed."

"Hang it all, where's your enterprise?
Don't you see, you owl, we'd kill two birds
with one stone?  We'd teach old Noakes a
lesson and test your idea at the same time.
Imagine Noakes is a prowling Hun, coming at
dead of night to surprise our unsuspecting
Tommies, stealing along, all quiet—and slap
he goes into the tar.  Come, man, it's
splendid."

Templeton came round to his friend's view,
and they lost no time in making their
preparations.  The lane was apparently used only as
a short cut from the high-road when coal was
brought to the farm.  It was just wide
enough to allow the passage of a cart, and even
on a bright night was dark, owing to the tall
hedge on one side and the high blank wall on
the other.  At its darkest spot, ten or a
dozen yards from the house, Eves set to work
to prepare the ground.  He measured off a
space about four yards long, and at the end
farthest from the house dug the soft earth
to the depth of four inches.  Working back
from this point, in the course of a couple of
hours' diligent spade work he had made a
shallow excavation in the lane, varying in
depth from four inches to eight.  Meanwhile
Templeton had broken up the tar and melted
it down in the small portable copper which
the farmer used for conveying tar from place
to place.  They ladled the molten stuff into
the excavation, filling up to the level of the
lane.

"Hope they won't smell a rat—which is
tar backwards," said Eves.  "Perhaps the
smell will have gone off a bit by the time it's
dark.  Tell you what, we'll cover it lightly
with farm litter, and strew some more between
here and the road; perhaps one smell will kill
the other."

Last of all they carried two strands of stout
wire across the lane, about half-way along the
tarry patch, and three inches above its
surface.

"Good!" cried Eves, surveying the completed
work.  "In the darkness they won't
see a thing."

"Suppose they don't come this way at
all?" said Templeton.

"You're a horrible pessimist.  Is there a
better way?  Aren't all my deductions good?
Well, then, cheer up, and see if you can
manage to laugh when the flies are trapped."

.. vspace:: 2

About half-past nine (summer time) Eves
and Templeton left the farmhouse by the
front door.  Mrs. Trenchard locked the door
behind them, and they had previously assured
themselves that all the other doors and
windows were securely fastened.  Each
carried a shot-gun.  Two guns were always
suspended on the wall of Mr. Trenchard's den,
and it had occurred to Eves that they might
prove useful.

It was a dark summer night.  There was
no moon, and the starlight was too feeble
to throw any illumination upon the
tree-bordered high-road.  The lads' intention was
to walk down the road until they came to
the lane, to hang about the entrance there
until they discovered the approach of
Smail, and then to take cover in the angle
between the hedge and the road, behind the
visitor.

They had hardly left the farm gate when
Eves's quick eyes detected a small figure
lurking in the shadow on the farther side of
the road.

"Noakes has posted a scout," he whispered.
"They're going to make the attempt.  But
this is awkward, Bob.  We shall have to
dispose of the scout; I fancy it's long-haired
Josiah."

"I bar that," said Templeton, decisively.
"I'm not going to hold up the youngster, or
anything of that sort."

"All right; there's no need.  Leave it to me."

They walked on, giving no sign of having
seen the boy, who slipped behind a tree-trunk
as they neared him.

"Yes, it's just the night," said Eves in a
loud voice, as though continuing a discussion.
"Just the night rabbits like.  Slip round
quietly to the wood; there'll be hundreds
skipping about in the darkness.  It's nearly a
mile away; allow half an hour to get there and
back, and an hour's sport; it'll only be eleven
then—not so very late."

By this time they had passed the lurking
scout, who must have heard all Eves said.  A
few yards farther along there was a turning
on the right, leading to a small wood.  Eves
struck into this.

"Come on," he said to Templeton.  "See
if my strategy doesn't answer."

They concealed themselves in the hedge,
and a few seconds later saw Josiah
Noakes run down the road towards the village.

"There you are," said Eves.  "Josiah's
run to tell his father we're off shooting rabbits,
and the coast is clear.  To bring the guns was
a bright idea, Bobby."

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.

.. _`"THEY TRIPPED OVER THE WIRE AND SPRAWLED AT FULL LENGTH"`:

.. figure:: images/img-128.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "THEY TRIPPED OVER THE WIRE AND SPRAWLED AT FULL LENGTH."

   "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."





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.. _`THE CLIPPER OF THE ROAD`:

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   THE CLIPPER OF THE ROAD

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   I

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"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
£25 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."

.. _`"'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'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-141.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'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.'"

   "'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."


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   II

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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."


.. vspace:: 3

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   III

.. vspace:: 2

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.

.. _`"THE BOOM SWUNG OUT, AND CAME INTO SHARP CONTACT, FIRST WITH NOAKES'S HEAD, THEN WITH THE WIND-SCREEN"`:

.. figure:: images/img-161.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "THE BOOM SWUNG OUT, AND CAME INTO SHARP CONTACT, FIRST WITH NOAKES'S HEAD, THEN WITH THE WIND SCREEN."

   "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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE COLD WATER CURE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   THE COLD WATER CURE

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   I

.. vspace:: 2

"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."


.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   II

.. vspace:: 2

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!"

.. _`"DAZE ME!' SAID THE CONSTABLE. 'SURELY—AY, 'TIS THE MAYOR'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-195.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'DAZE ME!' SAID THE CONSTABLE. 'SURELY—AY, 'TIS THE MAYOR.'"

   "'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."


.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   III

.. vspace:: 2

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°.

"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.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large 

   "MISTAKEN FOR A BURGLAR

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center large 
   
   "AMAZING EXPERIENCE OF THE MAYOR

.. vspace:: 1

"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."

.. vspace:: 2

"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!"


.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   IV

.. vspace:: 2

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°."

"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°!" 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°.

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°,
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°,
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."

The old woman collapsed into her seat,
amid murmurs of "Shame!"

"Good old Mrs. Pouncey!"  "Who said
profiteer?"  "Noakes raised Widow
Pouncey's rent!"  "Chuck him out!"  "Get
out, old crocodile!"

The hall rang with various cries.  Eves,
smiling broadly, glanced at the thermometer
The mercury touched 76°.  Noakes leant
forward over the table, and shaking his
fists, roared:

"As chairman of this meeting, and Mayor
of Pudlington, here I be, and here I bide."

He started back suddenly, putting a finger
between his collar and his neck, and looking
upward.  Next moment he dropped his head
and brushed a drop of water from his nose.
Several of the platform party turned their
faces up, started back, and upset their chairs.
Two or three thin streams of water, as from
the eyelets in the spray of a shower bath,
were descending from the unplastered ceiling.
Noakes edged a little to the left, and was
opening his mouth again, when with a hiss
and clatter like a heavy shower of rain upon
a glass house, the whole contents of Templeton's
experimental tank poured down between
the laths of the matchboard.  Noakes gasped
and spluttered, the ladies of his party shrieked,
all the occupants of the platform stampeded
like a flock of sheep, overturning their chairs,
obstructing one another in their mad flight
for the stairs.  For one moment of amazement
the audience was silent; then a roar of
inextinguishable laughter broke from nearly
three hundred throats, whistles and cat-calls
resounded, the Tommies looked round for the
stoker, whom, by some obscure instinct or
intuition, they connected with the
catastrophic shower.  But Eves had slipped away.

.. _`"THE WHOLE CONTENTS OF TEMPLETON'S EXPERIMENTAL TANK POURED DOWN"`:

.. figure:: images/img-222.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "THE WHOLE CONTENTS OF TEMPLETON'S EXPERIMENTAL TANK POURED DOWN."

   "THE WHOLE CONTENTS OF TEMPLETON'S EXPERIMENTAL TANK POURED DOWN."

.. vspace:: 2

A special Election Edition of the *Pudlington
Echo* appeared next day, and was bought
up eagerly by the crowds who, in spite of
the pouring rain, had flocked into the town
to record their votes.  The Editor had filled
half a column with a descriptive paragraph
in his best style.

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large 

   "SHOWER BATH AT A MEETING

.. class:: center medium
   
   "REMARKABLE INCIDENT

.. class:: center medium

   "THE MAYOR MISSES HIS UMBRELLA

.. vspace:: 1

"The meeting at the Literary Institute in
support of the candidature of Mr. Benjamin
Moggridge was broken up by a most remarkable
unrehearsed effect, which is probably
without parallel in the political life of this
country.  The mayor, Alderman Noakes,
was in the act of protesting, with all the
dignity pertaining to his exalted office,
against the demands of certain unruly spirits
that he should vacate the chair, when a
quantity of water, calculated to be equal
to a rainfall of 2.8 ins., descended with
startling suddenness and almost tropical violence
upon the platform, bringing the meeting
to a summary end.  We understand that
this inauspicious close to Mr. Moggridge's
campaign was due to the unexpected operation
of a new fire extinguisher, which the
builder, our well-known and respected fellow
citizen Mr. James Johnson, had located above
the hall with a view to experimenting on a
suitable occasion.  The premature exhibition
of this remarkable invention, which promises
to be an epoch-making success, appears to
have originated in the laudable desire of
Mr. Noakes that the large audience should be in
no way inconvenienced by the inclemency
of the weather.  His orders that the hall,
which, in its unfinished state, might
otherwise have sown the seeds of dangerous and
possibly fatal complaints, should be heated
to a wholesome degree of temperature, were
carried out with what proved to be
supererogatory solicitude; but our worthy mayor
will doubtless console himself for his
temporary discomfiture—the second this week,
it will be remembered—with the reflection
that the efficacy of the new fire extinguisher
was abundantly demonstrated, and that the
future immunity of the Literary Institute
from the ravages of the devouring monster is assured."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A BRUSH WITH THE ENEMY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   A BRUSH WITH THE ENEMY

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   I

.. vspace:: 2

Eves was dozing comfortably beneath a
pile of blankets.  It was a cold morning,
and though he had been awakened when
Templeton rose from the adjacent bed, he
had merely snorted in reply to his friend's
declaration that it was time to get up, and
turned over on the other side.

His slumbering ears were just conscious of
a shout from below; but he paid no heed to
it, even when it was repeated.  He was
settling down in luxurious warmth to that
early morning sleep which so deliciously
rounds off the night's repose, when two
sinewy hands wrenched away the bedclothes
wherein he had rolled himself, and Templeton
shouted:

"Get up, you slugabed.  It's come!"

"Cover me up, confound you!" cried
Eves, wrathfully.  "I shall catch my death
of cold."

"Get up.  I've been dressed half an hour.
It's come, I tell you."

Eves bent his knees and pulled his pyjamas
down over his ankles.

"I don't know what you're talking about,
and I don't care.  Mrs. Pouncey"—he raised
his voice—"come and drag this murdering
ruffian away.  He's giving me pneumonia."

"Don't be an ass, Tom.  Breakfast is
nearly ready, and as the nozzle has just come
by parcel post, I want to fix it and see how it
works before I go off to the shop."

"You and your inventions will be the
death of me," grumbled Eves, hugging
himself.  Then with a sudden movement he
caught up his pillow, slammed it at Templeton's
head, followed it up with a rush, and
began to throw off his pyjamas.  "Get out!"
he cried.  "I'll tub and dress in five minutes—not
for you, old greaser, but for the bacon
I smell frying."

"Well, I'll have time to fit on the nozzle
before you're down."

He dashed out of the room, took the
staircase in three resounding leaps, and ran
bare-headed through the rain to the shed.

Eves smiled as he watched him through the window.

"Old Bob's excited this morning," he
thought.  "Another rag, I wonder?"

Templeton's usual stolidity was in fact
quite broken down by the arrival of the nozzle
made to his own design, for which he had
been waiting in order to complete his
reconstruction of the ancient road-sweeper.  At
breakfast he was too much excited to do full
justice to the dish of bacon and eggs which
the excellent Mrs. Pouncey had provided.

"It's just the thing, Tom," he cried.  "It
fits perfectly, and I believe the old 'bus will
go like one o'clock.  The only thing left, if
it does work, is to complete my specification
and fire it in at the Patent Office."

"I don't see that.  Nobody wants a road-sweeper
to go like a Rolls-Royce."

"You don't understand.  I'm not out for
making road-sweepers.  I only bought the
old thing to experiment on.  It's the
reversible steering I'm going to patent.  Look
here; here's my rough draft.  That'll give
you an idea of what I'm driving at."

Eves took the paper handed to him, and
read aloud:

.. vspace:: 2

"'I, Robert Templeton, of the Red House,
Wonston, Hampshire, in the Kingdom of
England, lately a lieutenant in His Majesty's
Forces, do hereby declare the nature of this
invention and in what manner the same is
to be performed to be particularly described
and ascertained in and by the following——'

.. vspace:: 2

Oh, I say!  I can't wade through all this
balderdash.  Tell me in plain English what
you're after."

"Well, in plain English, then, my motor is
provided with two sets of steering-gear, and
the clutch couplings are so arranged that I
can engage one and disengage the other simply
by shifting round on the seat, on the pivot
of which a cam is keyed——"

"For goodness' sake, Bob, spare me the
rest, if that's plain English.  D'you mean
that you can drive your 'bus forward or
backward as you please?"

"You can put it like that if you like, only,
of course, the 'bus is always going forward,
because when you shift round on the seat——"

"Exactly.  Not a word more.  Why
couldn't you say that in a sentence instead
of meandering through page after page?
Why, hang it all, this will make a book before
you've done with it."

"It does seem a little long-winded,"
Templeton admitted, seriously, "but you've
no idea how particular the Patent Office
people are.  You have to be correct in the
smallest detail, and draw diagrams showing
everything.  There's a lot of work to be done
on this draft yet before it's ready."

"Well, let's go and see how it works in
practice.  I'd die happy if I thought one of
your old inventions was really going to make
your fortune."

"I'm afraid there isn't time now.  I must
hurry off to the shop.  But we'll try it
to-night when I get back.  It's a pity old
Wilkins insisted on my working out my week's
notice; I'd have liked to devote all my time
to it."

"Can't you forfeit your screw or something?"

"I offered to, but Wilkins wouldn't hear
of it, and as I hate bothers, and my leaving
without notice would certainly put him in
a hole, I'll stick it till Saturday.  Are you
coming with me to the shop?"

"I'll walk with you so far; then I'll go
on to the town and inquire tenderly after
Noakes.  We'll meet at the 'Three Tuns'
for lunch.  Mrs. Pouncey will be glad of a
day off."

Encased in macintoshes, they trudged up
the muddy lane.  At the corner they met a
farmer driving his cart westward.  He nodded
to Templeton.

"You've gotten she at last, zur," he said,
with a smile.

"Yes; all right now, Mr. West."

"Ay.  I knowed she'd come, gie un time.
Gie un time, I said, and she'll come.  Well,
marnen to 'ee, zur."

"Who's your she, Bob?" asked Eves as
they went on.

"Oh, he means the nozzle.  They're fond
of the feminine about here."

"But how on earth does he know anything
about the nozzle?  It came by post, you said?"

"Yes.  I suppose the postman told him.
You're not used to country ways."

"But how did the postman know what was
in the parcel?  They don't open things, I
suppose?"

"Of course not.  I dare say I mentioned
to the postman one day what I was expecting,
and they gossip about anything and everything here."

"What a place!  Look here, my son,
you'll have one of your inventions forestalled
one of these days if you don't keep your
mouth shut.  Then you'd be sorry."

It was not Eves's way to keep his mouth
shut, and he expatiated on the evils of
talkativeness all the way to the workshop, where
the friends parted.  The same topic was
revived when they met at the "Three Tuns"
for lunch.

"Wilkins was unusually amiable to-day,"
Templeton happened to remark.  "He
seemed quite pleased that the nozzle is a
success."

"Were you juggins enough to tell him
that?" asked Eves with a touch of scorn.

"Well, what else could I do when he asked
me point-blank?  I didn't mention it first."

"I suppose he heard of it from the postman
or from Farmer West, or from any other
inhabitant of this gossiping old monkey-house.
Wilkins is the last man who ought to know
anything about your private affairs.  Upon
my word, I think I'd better get demobilised
and take a job as your keeper.  You're not
fit to be trusted alone."

After lunch Eves accompanied Templeton
to the shop, and watched over him with
fatherly interest through the afternoon.  He
was amused to see Templeton from time to
time break off his work on a purely mechanical
job, hurry to his coat hanging on a peg,
extract the specification from his
breast-pocket, and make some trifling alteration
in text or diagram.

"Is that the result of what they call
unconscious cerebration?" he asked.  "Or can
your mighty mind attend to two things at
once?  You're a wonder, Bobby, and I hope
I shall live long enough to write you a
thumping obituary notice."


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   II

.. vspace:: 2

Next day, immediately after breakfast,
Eves went off on his own devices, and did not
see Templeton again until supper-time.

"You look rather down in the mouth.
Bob," he said.  "Anything wrong?"

"I'm a bit worried," Templeton replied.
"I don't think I'm naturally suspicious——"

"Rather not!  You're as innocent as a
babe.  Any old diddler could suck you in.
But what's happened?"

"This afternoon I had to go out for an
hour or so to try a car.  Wilkins was away,
so I left the shop closed.  While I was running
the car I had an idea for my specification
and when I got back I took it out of my coat
to alter it.  And I found this."

He handed Eves the paper.

"Well?  It's the same old thing—same
old rigmarole, isn't it?"

"That smudge of ink!"

"Your elbow—but, of course, it's all in
pencil.  You don't mean—

"As you say, it's all in pencil.  It hasn't
been near ink, so far as I know.  At any rate,
that smudge wasn't there this morning."

Eves whistled.

"Wilkins knew about your specification, of
course; everybody knows everything in this
Arcadia.  My prophetic soul!  He's been
copying your draft, Bob, and being an untidy
penman, left his mark behind.  He must
have been uncommon slippy to copy it all
in an hour, though, with all these erasures
and interlinings.  Any one else got a key
of the shop?"

"No one, so far as I know."

"Noakes?  You remember when we caught
him at the drawer?  My hat!  They don't
stick at trifles.  This is felony, or I'm a
Dutchman.  Wilkins, or Noakes, or both of
them, want to get in first at the Patent
Office; they've stolen your specification."

"That's a serious charge.  We've no proof."

"My dear chap, it's as plain as a pikestaff.
But look here, what can be done?  Look at
the worst; say they have copied your stuff,
what then?"

"If they file their application at the Patent
Office it will be no end of a bother and expense
to prove it's mine."

"I'd swear that before any beak in the
country.  But let's keep to the point.  They
couldn't get to the Patent Office to-night?"

"No; it closes at five; opens at ten in the
morning."

"What time's the last train up?"

"It left twenty minutes ago," said Templeton,
after a glance at his watch.

"And in the morning?"

"The first train reaches London something
after eleven."

Eves mused for a few seconds, drumming
on the table.

"I tell you what," he said at length.  "You
set to work and make a fair copy of this stuff,
and we'll go up by the first train to-morrow
and see if—Hallo! here's a car.  Rather
late for a visit."

The panting of an automobile engine was
distinctly audible.  There was a rap on the
outer door.  Mrs. Pouncey shuffled along the
passage; voices were heard; then the
landlady entered.

"A gentleman to see you, sir; O'Reilly by name."

"Our excitable Irishman," said Eves.

"Ask him in, Mrs. Pouncey, please," said
Templeton.

O'Reilly came in like a tornado, waving his
arms and wearing his capacious smile.

"Sure, I'm delighted to see the two of you,
and me not knowing the way," he said as
he shook hands.  "The Government, or the
colonel anyway, has taken my tender for the
camp waste, and 'tis to you I owe it, and I'll
beg you to drink to the colonel, or anyway the
Government; I have the champagne in my
pocket ready."

He produced a bottle from the deep pocket
of his waterproof coat.

"Jolly good of you, Mr. O'Reilly," said
Eves.  "You've come in the nick of time.
My friend Templeton wants something to
cheer him up."

"Do you say so?  What might be the
trouble, now?"

"Expound, Bob; your invention, I mean.
I should only make a mess of it."

"It was just a notion for driving a car in
the opposite direction to what it has been
going, the driver swinging round on his seat
and automatically bringing into action
steering-gear affecting the back wheels instead of
the front, or vice versa."

"Saves turning in a narrow lane, you see,"
added Eves.

"Bedad, that would be a blessing to me
this dark night," said O'Reilly.  "But what
is the trouble?  Funds run out?  Would
you show me the plans, I'd find the
capital—provided they'll work out, of course."

"Splendid!" cried Eves.  "Here's the
draft specification—but there's the rub;
that smudge of ink.  Look here, Bob, just
set to work and copy your diagrams while I
tell Mr. O'Reilly all about it, and he opens
the fizz.  We've no wine-glasses, only
tumblers, but no one will mind that."

O'Reilly's face grew grave as he listened to
the story told by Eves.

"That's bad," he said.  "I stopped at the
station a while ago to get a London evening
paper, and I saw that mayor of yours,
Noakes, step into the London train.  There
was another fellow with him, seeing him off."

"What sort of man?" asked Eves.

"A thick ruffian of a fellow in a long coat
and a motor cap.  I can't tell you which of
them I dislike the most, by the faces of 'em,
I mean—him or Noakes."

"That was Wilkins.  There's no doubt
I was right, Bob; Noakes has slunk off to
London to get in first; and that was the last
train!"

"Drink, my boys," said O'Reilly, who had
meanwhile opened his bottle.  "Health to
ourselves, and confusion to Noakes.  We'll
get the top-side of him yet.  There's one
way to do it.  'Tis nine o'clock, and we are a
hundred and sixty miles from London—that
and a bit over.  I'll drive you up in my car."

"Magnificent," cried Eves.  "How long
will your diagrams take, Bob?"

"Under an hour; but there's the specification
to copy out."

"I'll do that.  Hand over.  We'll be
ready in an hour, Mr. O'Reilly."

"Then I'll run back to the town and fill up
my tank and see to my tyres and lamps,"
said O'Reilly.  "Be you ready when I call
for you, and with luck and no punctures we'll
be in London by six o'clock."

He gulped a glass of champagne and hurried
from the room.

The two lads went on steadily with their
tasks.  Templeton was finished first, and
going to his desk scrawled a hasty note,
which he placed in an envelope, and was
addressing when Eves sprang up.

"That's done," he said, flinging down his
pen.  "What are you writing to Wilkins for?"

"Just to tell him I shan't be at the shop
till Thursday."

"I wouldn't tell the brute anything."

"Well, you see, there's nothing proved
yet, and——"

"And Noakes, I suppose, has gone up to
town to leave his card on the King!  Bob,
you're an ass.  But drink up your fizz;
it's pretty flat.  I hear the car.  It'll be a
pretty cold ride; rather sport, though."

"I hope we shan't have a spill.  O'Reilly's
a bit wild, you know.  I wish we hadn't
drunk that champagne."

"Oh, you're hopeless.  Get on your coat,
and don't worry.  It'll be a splendid rag."

Ten minutes sufficed for their donning their
thickest outer garments and soothing the
agitation into which the announcement of
their journey threw Mrs. Pouncey.  Then
they started.

It is to be feared that Eves's expectation
of a "splendid rag" was somewhat
disappointed.  There was a certain excitement
in the first hour's run over the quiet country
roads, when the car, behind its glaring
headlights, seemed to be continually dashing
itself against a wall of impenetrable blackness.
But it soon became monotonous.  The air
was cold and damp, and in spite of their thick
clothes and the windscreen the two passengers
soon became unpleasantly chilled.  O'Reilly,
a business man as well as an Irishman, had
a proper respect for his car, and drove
carefully through the towns.  His enthusiasm
for the Government was considerably damped
when first at Bournemouth and then at
Southampton he found all the hotels closed,
and failed to obtain anything in the way of
liquid refreshment stronger than spade coffee.
These were the moments when Templeton
felt most comfortable, and he confided to
Eves his belief that after all they would
arrive safely at their journey's end.  By the
time they reached Winchester the feet of
both were tingling with cold; at Guildford
even Eves had become morose; and it was
not until they narrowly escaped a collision
with an Army lorry as they swung round to
cross Vauxhall Bridge that Eves felt the
only thrill their journey provided.

It was nearly half-past six when O'Reilly
drew up at the door of his rooms in a quiet
Westminster street.

"You'll be cold, sure," he said.  "I'll
let you in and show you the bath-room;
there'll be hot water.  I'll garage the car,
and by the time you're dry I'll be back.  I
don't dare wake my housekeeper.  The last
trump wouldn't get her out of bed before
half-past seven.  But her heart is never
cold, and at half-past eight she'll give us a
breakfast fit for the three kings of
Carrickmagree.  Not but what we'll forage out
something before then."

Bathed, warmed, and fed, the three boarded
a motor-bus soon after nine o'clock, and were
set down at the end of Chancery Lane.  As
they walked up the street Eves suddenly
pulled them into a shop doorway.

"There's old Noakes about ten yards
ahead," he said.  "The Patent Office doesn't
open till ten, I think you said, Bob?"

"That's so."

"Then he's about forty minutes to wait.
Surely he won't hang about the door.  Let
us follow him carefully."

They had taken only a few steps when they
saw Noakes, swinging a fat umbrella, enter
a typewriting agency.

"He's going to have your specification
copied," said Eves.

"Sure, we'll be safe till ten," said O'Reilly
with a chuckle.  "The girls will keep the
likes of him waiting.  Now do you come
with me to a patent agent, one of my friends.
He'll put us up to the way of getting over
Noakes."

The agent's office was but a few yards up
the street.  The agent himself had not yet
arrived; his typist-secretary explained that
he was not expected until ten, and might
be later.

"Well, then, you'll be after doing us a
kindness.  My friend here has a specification
which Mr. Jones is going to file for me, and
he'll need it copied in duplicate at once.
Indeed, he'll be mighty pleased to find it
ready for him; he's been longing to get his
hand on it these many weeks, and you will
not disappoint him, will you now?"

"I won't disappoint you, Mr. O'Reilly,"
said the girl, with a smile.

She sat down at her machine, rattled away
on the keys, and in twenty minutes handed to
O'Reilly two clean copies of the specification.
Her employer arrived on the stroke of ten.  A
few words from O'Reilly apprised him of the
urgency of the matter, and he at once
accompanied the three to the Patent Office and
filed the formal application.

They left the office in couples, O'Reilly
going ahead with his friend.  The other two
noticed that O'Reilly edged away to one side
quickly, leaving a gap through which came
hurriedly a shambling figure in a wideawake
and a long brown ulster, in one hand a large
envelope, in the other his huge umbrella.

"Our worthy mayor," whispered Eves,
giving Templeton a nudge.

Apparently Noakes had not recognised
O'Reilly, but his eyes widened and his chin
dropped as he came face to face with Eves
and Templeton.  The shock of amazement
caused him to halt with a jerk, bringing him
into sharp collision with an errand boy
hurrying along behind him, a basket of fish
upon his arm.

"Here, old 'un, mind my toes," said the
lad, not ill-temperedly, at the same time
sticking out his elbow to ward off Noakes's
obstructing bulk.  His action was as a spark
to powder.  With the impulse of an angry,
ill-conditioned man to vent his wrath on the
nearest object, Noakes swung round and
brought his umbrella heavily down upon
the lad's shoulders.

"I'll learn you!" he cried, truculently.

The response was unexpected.  Snatching
up a prime cod by the tail, the lad dashed its
head full in Noakes's face.  Noakes winced
at the cold, slimy contact, staggered, then
lurched forward, raising his umbrella once
more to strike.  The lad was too quick for
him.  Dropping his basket, he wrenched the
umbrella away, flung it into the gutter, and,
squaring his shoulders, commenced that
curious piston-like movement of the two
arms which is the street boy's preliminary
to a sparring bout.  Suddenly his right fist
shot out, and planted a blow in the man's
midriff.  A crowd quickly assembled.

.. _`"THE LAD DASHED ITS HEAD FULL IN NOAKES'S FACE"`:

.. figure:: images/img-244.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "THE LAD DASHED ITS HEAD FULL IN NOAKES'S FACE."

   "THE LAD DASHED ITS HEAD FULL IN NOAKES'S FACE."

"I say, d'you know that the gentleman you
are assaulting is the Mayor of Pudlington?"
said Eves, stepping up to the errand boy.

"Don't care who he is.  He ain't going
to hit me for nothing, not if he's the Lord Mayor."

But the sight of a burly policeman
approaching from the corner of the street
brought discretion.  He picked up his basket
and ran off, turning to give Noakes a parting
salute with his thumb to his nose.


.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

   III

.. vspace:: 2

O'Reilly treated the two lads to what
Eves described as a topping lunch, and
afterwards spent half an hour in a close
examination of the specification.

"I like the looks of it," he said, finally.
"Have you given it a trial?"

"Not yet," replied Templeton.  "I've
rigged up the mechanism, rather roughly, on
an old road-sweeper I got cheap, and a little
more tinkering should put it in working
order.  I might be able to try it on Saturday
afternoon when I'm clear of the shop."

"Well, then, I'm the way of making you
an offer.  I'll run down on Saturday and
watch your trial.  If the creature works,
I'll pay for the installation on a respectable
car, and finance you up to a thousand pounds.
You'll pay me six per cent. interest and repay
the capital just when you can."

"It's really too good of you, Mr. O'Reilly,"
said Templeton.

"Sorra a bit, my boy.  I'm doing you no
favour; 'tis business, and there's no denying it."

"Splendid!" said Eves.  "You've got
your chance at last, Bob.  Remember me,
old man, when the profits come rolling in.
I've stood by you in many old rags.  I tell
you what, I'll write your advertisements,
and make your reversible steering as famous
as Beecham's pills."

"I wouldn't wonder but you've got a
flowery style, Mr. Eves," said O'Reilly.
"Now, if so be you mean to catch your
train, you'd better be off.  I'll see you on
Saturday."

They took a taxi and arrived at the station
in good time.  After securing seats, Eves
walked the length of the train to see whether
Noakes was their fellow-passenger.  There
was no sign of him.  Eves kept an eye on
the platform from the window of his
compartment until the train moved off, but
Noakes had not appeared.

"He'll go on the razzle, I suppose," he
remarked, as he dropped into the corner
opposite Templeton.  "But he can't keep it
up long.  Isn't Saturday the day for that old
ceremony—what do they call it?—anointing
the British Stone?  I'd made up my mind
to see that; it will be a bit of a rag to finish
up my holiday with.  I suppose you'll be
too much occupied with your road-sweeper
to bother about it?"

"Well, you see, the afternoons are short
now, and as O'Reilly is coming down specially——"

"Just so.  Business before pleasure.  I
foresee the end of our old friendship.  'But
O the heavy change now thou art gone!'  Milton,
old chap.  That's what I shall say
when I think of the spiffing rags we've had
together, and mourn for the days that are
no more.  Hand over that Punch, or I shall
burst into tears.  Perhaps I shall anyhow."

Next morning, when Templeton arrived at
the shop, he found Wilkins standing at the
door, an image of truculence.

"You didn't turn up yesterday," he cried.
"What was you after, eh?"

"As I explained in my note, I had to make
a sudden journey to London."

"I don't want none of your explanations.
You had ought to ask my permission, going
gallivanting sudden like that.  I won't have
no more of it.  You're sacked; you
understand that?  Sacked without notice.  Here's
half a week's wages; you shan't have nothing
against me.  Hook it!  Now!  This very
minute!"

"With the greatest pleasure in life," said
Templeton, coolly.  "Good morning."

He was not aware, until informed by the
omniscient postman, that Wilkins had received
on the previous morning a telegram from
Noakes, the cryptic wording of which had
already been thoroughly discussed in the
neighbourhood: "Boy in first sack immediate."

Delighted at the leisure afforded by his
dismissal, Templeton returned to his lodging,
and spent the remainder of that day and the
whole of the next in working at the
road-sweeper.  Eves watched him for an hour
or two, but finding his friend's patient labour
too slow for his taste, he went through the
town to the scene of Saturday's ceremony,
and amused himself by looking on at the
preparations, and chatting with any one
who would listen to him.  The British Stone
was a sort of truncated monolith standing
in a meadow about a couple of acres in
extent.  A small square enclosure had been
roped off around it, and within stood a low
wooden platform from which the mayor,
after breaking a bottle of cider on the stone,
would deliver the annual oration in honour of
the town and its ancient worthies.  Against
the hedge, on all four sides of the meadow,
were ranged caravans, roundabouts, Aunt
Sallies, raree-shows, and all the paraphernalia
of a country fair, with stalls for the sale of
hot drinks and such comestibles as the Food
Regulations had not debarred.  The
continuous wet weather and the passage of many
vehicles had made the entrance to the field
a slough, and many of the showmen wore
gloomy faces at the expectation that fewer
spectators than usual would attend the
ceremony.  They asked quite reasonably whether
the women folk, their best customers, would
brave the risk of sinking ankle-deep in mud.

Saturday morning came.  A thin drizzle
was falling; the sky was gloomy, and
Mrs. Pouncey foretold that it was to be a "mizzly
day."  Templeton, however, was so anxious
to prove the merits of his invention to O'Reilly
in the afternoon, that immediately after
breakfast, nothing daunted by the weather,
he suggested that Eves should accompany
him on a trial spin.  They ran the
road-sweeper up the muddy lane to the high road,
Eves remarking that there was great scope
for the activities for which the machine was
designed.  The macadamised surface of the
highway was less miry, and Templeton assured
his friend that he would not get very much
splashed if the speed of the sweeper was kept low.

Templeton occupied the driver's seat; Eves
stood on a rail above the fixed brushes
behind, holding on to the framework.  The
machine ran steadily up the road, but when
Templeton slowed down and turned upon
the pivot which was to bring into action the
steering-gear at the rear, the vehicle, instead
of moving straight hi the opposite direction,
showed a tendency to sheer off to one side.
Moreover, it turned out that the gear which
raised the brushes clear of the road was out
of order.  Every now and then the brushes
dropped, and the machine reverted to its
original use.  At these times Eves's boots and
puttees received a generous bespattering of
mud and water, and when the brushes began
to "race," sending a spray of mud not merely
across the road, but into his face, he protested
loudly.

"Why didn't you wait till you could rig
cranks, or whatever they are, on a decent
car instead of this ramshackle old piece of
antiquity?" he grumbled.

"Sorry, old man," said Templeton; "I'll
go a bit slower."

"Besides," Eves went on, "your reversible
arrangements don't act.  You can't steer the
thing straight.  It goes like a crab, or a drunk.
Swing round again, for goodness' sake.  Here's
a wagon coming; I don't want to be chucked
under the wheels."

"All right," said Templeton, with
composure, turning round.  "It's only a slight
hitch.  Of course, the clutch connection is
roughly made; I did the best I could with
my materials; but you see the idea's all
right, and it'll be easy enough to correct the
defects."

"You won't think of showing the thing to
O'Reilly in its present state?"

"Why not?  He's a practical man."  Templeton
began to get a little warm.  "It's
chaps like you who know nothing about
machinery that lose heart at a trifling
setback.  And very likely another half-hour's
work in the shed will greatly improve things.
This is a trial spin; you can't expect
everything to go like clockwork first go off."

"Jolly good speech, old man.  Best I've
heard of yours.  My faith in you is restored.
By all means run the thing back to the shed;
but, if you don't mind, I'll dismount when
we come to the lane.  I don't mind a
shower-bath from above, but from below—no,
thank you.  I've swallowed enough mud in
Flanders."

Templeton spent the rest of the morning
in overhauling his mechanism, and Eves in
removing the worst of the mud splotches
from his clothes.  They had just finished
lunch, when O'Reilly drove up in a growler
hired at the station.

"Faith, 'tis a terrible day for wetness," he
said.  "But here I am, and I'll be glad now
to take a look at your machine.  Have you
it in working order?"

"We gave it a short trial this morning,"
said Templeton.  "It didn't behave quite so
well as I had hoped, but I've spent a couple
of hours on it since, and it ought to go better
now."

"I like your modesty, my boy.  'Tis a
rare thing in inventors."

"He's far too modest," said Eves.  "That's
why I've appointed myself his advertising
agent.  It's an old road-sweeper, remember;
he's been working under difficulties.  In my
opinion—of course, I'm not an expert—the
thing's a great success; you should see the
amount of mud it scooped up."

"I saw a mighty deal of mud as I came
down the lane.  You will not try it here, sure?"

"We tried it along the road," said Templeton.
"And I've been thinking of a better
place.  On the other side of the town the
road is tarred, and the machine will run much
more smoothly.  Besides, there's very little mud."

"A bright idea," said Eves.  "I propose
that you drive the machine over the muddy
roads while Mr. O'Reilly and I follow in the
growler.  We'll get out when we come to the
tarred highway, and I'll perch up where I
was before, and try to keep those brushes in
order."

The suggestion was accepted.  O'Reilly
looked on critically as Templeton drove the
sweeper slowly up the lane; then he stepped
into the cab and told the driver to follow at a
reasonable distance.  Eves joined him.

As they proceeded along the road they
passed at intervals small groups of farmers
and labourers with their wives and children,
who, defying the weather, had donned their
Sunday best for the civic ceremony.

"Is it the likes of a wake, then?" O'Reilly
asked.  "Or a horse-race, maybe?"

"Only a country beano," replied Eves, and
told what he knew of the afternoon's proceedings.

"That's disappointing, now.  I'd have
liked to see a good race, but I've no wish in
the world to hear Noakes make a speech."

Arriving at the tarred highway the two
alighted from the cab.  Eves took up his post
above the brushes as before, and O'Reilly,
eager to watch the working of Templeton's
apparatus at close quarters, chose a
somewhat precarious position on the opposite
side of the framework.

"Now, Tom," said Templeton, his manner
betraying a little nervousness, "if you see
the gear dropping, just raise it.  There's very
little mud, but there are pools here and there,
and I don't want to splash you.  I propose
to run straight ahead for a few minutes till
I get up a fair speed, for I fancy the mechanism
will work better then.  Are you ready?"

"Righto.  The road's clear."

Templeton started his engine.  The
machine moved forward, at first slowly,
but gradually gathering way.  Eves kept a
watchful eye on the brushes, and when they
showed no sign of dropping he remarked
to O'Reilly, "I think old Bob's done the
trick this time."

"Maybe," replied O'Reilly, in an
undertone, "but this reversing gear, now."

The speed continually increased until it
reached a rate of about fifteen miles an hour.
There was no traffic on the road, and
Templeton was on the point of slowing down,
preparatory to stopping and turning, when,
rounding a slight bend, he came to a
cross-road just as the head of the civic procession
arrived at the corner.  The town sergeant,
bearing the mace, led the way; behind him
came Noakes, in his mayoral robes, followed
immediately by the councillors, the senior
of whom carried a magnum bottle of cider.

Templeton caught sight of the procession
just in time to avoid a collision.  Forgetting
in the excitement of the moment the necessity
of slowing down before bringing the reverse
into action, he swung round on the pivot.
The effect was amazing.  The machine,
instead of running in the opposite direction,
plunged forward with zigzag rushes, charging
into the procession.  Templeton lost his
head, forgot his brakes, and made frantic
efforts to stop the engine, but something
had stuck.  Eves, between alarm and amusement
at the stampede of the civic dignitaries,
forgot to keep his eye on the brushes, which
had dropped owing to the change of gear,
and now began to race.  Unlike the highway,
the cross-road was deep in mud, and as the
machine ran from side to side, dashing first
into one hedge, then the other, the brushes
flung up mud in all directions.  Eves and
O'Reilly were splashed from head to foot,
but the full effect of this outrageous behaviour
of the road-sweeper was felt by Noakes and
the councillors immediately behind him.
They had sought safety by backing into the
hedge opposite to that at which the machine
appeared to be charging as it approached
them.  Unhappily for them, it suddenly
altered its direction, passed within a few
inches of their shrinking forms, and covered
them with a deluge of liquid mud.  There
was a crash as the bottle of cider fell and
splintered into fragments, and loud cries
of alarm and objurgation from the
bespattered victims.

.. _`"COVERED THEM WITH A DELUGE OF LIQUID MUD"`:

.. figure:: images/img-257.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "COVERED THEM WITH A DELUGE OF LIQUID MUD."

   "COVERED THEM WITH A DELUGE OF LIQUID MUD."

The incident occupied barely half a minute.
Templeton recovered himself, stopped his
engine, rammed on his brakes, and, least
bemired of all the actors, got down to make
his apologies.  Eves and O'Reilly by this
time were shaking with laughter.  Noakes,
seeing that the machine had come to a stop,
approached the contrite driver with uplifted
fist, too irate even to speak.  He had tried
to rub the splashes of mud from his cheeks,
with the result that he had only spread them.

"I am really very sorry, Mr. Noakes," said
Templeton.  "I was trying a new invention,
and I can't say how much I regret——"

"Od rabbit you and your inventions,"
roared Noakes.  "You did it o' purpose, you
viper.  I'll have you up, I will, for creating
a nuisance——"

"Driving to the danger of the public, be
jowned to 'em," put in a councillor who had
suffered scarcely less than the mayor.

"Ay, the danger of the public and bodily
injury to the mayor," cried Noakes.  "No
option of a fine, neither; you'll go to jail,
sure as my name be Philemon Noakes."

"Come, come, now," said O'Reilly, thinking
it time to intervene.  "Sure, any one
could see it was nothing but an accident that
might have happened to the Lord Mayor
of Dublin himself.  You gentlemen have
got splashed; faith, so have I.  Look at
me!  The right way to look at it is that we're
all suffering in a good cause—martyrs of
science, and I wouldn't say but we've got
off lightly."

"There's summat in that, Neighbour
Noakes," said a councillor who, being at the
rear of the procession, had not come within
range of the rotating brushes.  "Ay, what I
say is, these young fellers what have served
their country want to be encouraged, and if
so be a little mud flies—why, there 'tis; it
will brush off, and 'tis all one."

"There'll be no 'nointing to-day, that's
certain," said another.  "Seems to me we'd
best all go home along before they get wind
of it in the meadow up yonder.  None of us
wants a crowd ramping round and admiring
of our muddy faces.  The old stone won't
hurt for want of its drop o' liquor for once."

"That's true," added a third.  "And as
for speeches—well, speaking as man to man,
speeches are a weariness of the flesh to me.
Let's go home along, neighbours, and drink a
drop o' something hot, with our toes on the fire."

The suggestion won favour with the
majority, and Noakes, irritably conscious of
his unseemly appearance, allowed himself
to be escorted towards the town.  A few of
the more curious waited to see what further
antics the road-sweeper performed.  But
they were disappointed.  A brief examination
of the mechanism revealed to Templeton
the cause of his failure.  He made certain
adjustments which enabled him to drive
the machine home at a moderate pace, and
without further experiments with the reversible
steering.  Eves and O'Reilly followed,
prudently, in the cab.

"My hat, what a rag!" said Eves to his
companion on the way.  "But I'm afraid
old Bob has come a cropper, poor old boy!
It's not the first time; but I'll say this for
him, he always comes up smiling."

"And he'll smile to a good tune if I don't
be mistaken," said O'Reilly.  "He's got hold
of a good idea, and with the help of an
engineer friend of mine he'll make something
of it.  I'll see to that."

The next week's local paper contained a
copious but by no means a wholly accurate
account of the incident.  The deplorable
appearance of the mayor was described,
however, with excessive particularity.  Unkindest
cut of all, the editor pointed the moral:

.. vspace:: 2

"We have already more than once drawn
the attention of the mayor and corporation
to the disgracefully muddy state of our roads
in winter-time.  Now that our civic worthies
have suffered in their own persons, and the
town has been deprived for the first time in a
hundred and forty years of its ancient and
time-honoured ceremony, perhaps something
will be done, or are we to wait until the present
mayor's tenure of office has expired?"

.. vspace:: 2

A few months later Eves received from
Templeton a long letter which gave him a
good deal of pleasure.  Templeton related
that his invention, tested under more favourable
conditions, had more than fulfilled his
hopes.  O'Reilly was enthusiastic about it,
and had arranged to set up a small factory
for him.  But almost as agreeable was the
news about the Mayor of Pudlington:

.. vspace:: 2

"Noakes was never popular," Templeton
wrote, "and the sorry figure he cut in certain
episodes we know of brought him into ridicule,
which is always fatal.  It began to be
whispered, too, that there was something shady
in his transactions over contracts and
canteens, and what not.  Anyhow, one fine
day he disappeared, and I hear that there are
warrants out against him.  I'm not vindictive,
but I can't say I shall be sorry if he
is caught."

.. vspace:: 2

"Just like old Bob," said Eves to himself.
He sat down to dash off a reply:

.. vspace:: 2

"I'm jolly glad, old man.  'There is a tide,'
etc.  (Shakespeare).  I always said you'd make
your fortune, though I must own I never
thought it would be through a mad
road-sweeper.  I'm going to be demobbed after
all, so I'll take on your advertising stunt
as soon as you like.  As to Noakes, I don't
care whether he's caught or not.  He was
always a glorious rag, and I rather fancy he
more or less inspired some of your bright ideas."

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center medium

   THE END

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center small white-space-pre-line

   *Printed by*
   MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED
   *Edinburgh*

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center large bold

   HERBERT STRANG

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium bold

   COMPLETE LIST OF STORIES

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

ADVENTURES OF DICK TREVANION, THE
ADVENTURES OF HARRY ROCHESTER, THE
A GENTLEMAN AT ARMS
A HERO OF LIÉGE
AIR PATROL, THE
AIR SCOUT, THE
BARCLAY OF THE GUIDES
BLUE RAIDER, THE
BOYS OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
BRIGHT IDEAS
BROWN OF MOUKDEN
BURTON OF THE FLYING CORPS
CARRY ON
CRUISE OF THE GYRO-CAR, THE
FIGHTING WITH FRENCH
FLYING BOAT, THE
FRANK FORESTER
HUMPHREY BOLD
JACK HARDY
KING OF THE AIR
KOBO
LONG TRAIL, THE
LORD OF THE SEAS
MOTOR SCOUT, THE
OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, THE
ONE OF CLIVE'S HEROES
PALM TREE ISLAND
ROB THE RANGER
ROUND THE WORLD IN SEVEN DAYS
SAMBA
SETTLERS AND SCOUTS
SULTAN JIM
SWIFT AND SURE
THROUGH THE ENEMY'S LINES
TOM BURNABY
TOM WILLOUGHBY'S SCOUTS
WITH DRAKE ON THE SPANISH MAIN
WITH HAIG ON THE SOMME

.. vspace:: 6

.. pgfooter::