"Yes, I should like to be one of the first," Miss Yard admitted. "Why have you put that idea into her head? It may stick, and then she'll drive me crazy," scolded Nellie; it being perfectly safe to speak openly before the old lady. "Send her off with Kezia at once," urged George. "I must go with her." "Then take Kezia too. If she stays she will split to Bessie. Even if she tries her hardest not to, she won't be able to help herself. You can't keep anything a secret for long in a place like this. You clear off, and I'll go into lodgings--and read more novels." "Won't that look queer?" "It would if Kezia stayed: it won't if she goes. I can't put up here with nobody to look after me." "And you will undertake to move the furniture?" "I will," he promised. "Very well," she murmured after a pause. "We can't possibly get away tomorrow, as it will take me a day to pack; but we will go the day after." "Oh, well, it's no good bothering now," said Miss Yard in a voice of bitter resignation, pushing back her plate and kicking at her footstool. "They've started without us." George occupied his old bedroom, positively for the last time, and in the morning went out to wrestle with his difficulties. His reception by the villagers was colder than ever because, during his absence, the Dismal Gibcat had made a speech directed mainly against the man who had dared to interfere with local progress. The Dismal Gibcat preferred to be in a minority of one, but such was his gift of eloquence that a single speech sometimes swung the majority over to his side; which was an embarrassing position only to be escaped from by repudiating his former opinions. This speech had done its work, as George was presently to discover when the Dumpy Philosopher and the Wallower in Wealth approached him with questions concerning the Dartmoor Railway Company. "That scheme is done for. It was one of my uncle's bubbles, but I have pricked it," he replied, groping his way back to popularity. "Us wur told a lot of American gentlemen wanted to build the railway wi' something they called a syndicate," said the Wallower in Wealth. "I told 'em the country is hardly flat enough," said George. "It wur flat enough vor Captain Drake, and it wur flat enough vor you when you fetched that millionaire down along to look at it," said the Dumpy Philosopher. "That's all a mistake. Mr. Jenkins came here to buy a pair of vases," said George, speaking the truth with disastrous results; for the two elders were not quite such fools as to believe a gentleman would travel from London to Highfield for the sake of purchasing a shilling's worth of crockery. "They'm out o' cloam in London, I fancy," remarked the Wallower in Wealth. "And in America," added the Dumpy Philosopher. "Mr. Jenkins is a collector of vases," explained George.