There had been a period of prosperity following the strange visit of Wandering Peter. John Strong’nth’arm came back to his workshop another man, or so it seemed to little Anthony. A brisk, self-confident person who often would whistle while he worked. The job on which he had been engaged when taken ill had been well finished and further orders had resulted. There were times when the temporary assistance of an old jobbing tinker and his half-witted son was needful. Mrs. Strong’nth’arm, discussing things in general with a neighbour, would casually refer to “Our workpeople.” That uncle in Australia, or elsewhere, who had been fading year by year almost to disappearing point, reappeared out of the shadows. With the gambler’s belief that when once the luck changes every venture is bound to come home, she regarded his sudden demise as merely a question of time. She wondered how much he would leave them. She hoped it would be sufficient to enable them to become gentlefolks. “What is a gentlefolk?” asked Anthony, to whom she had been talking. It was explained to him that gentlefolk were people who did not have to work for their living. Mrs. Strong’nth’arm had served them and knew. There were others, who sat in offices and gave orders. To this lesser rank it was possible to climb by industry and virtue. But first of all you must go to school and learn. His mother caught him up in her thin arms and pressed him passionately to her narrow bosom. “You will be a gentleman,” she prophesied. “I feel it. I’ve prayed God every night since you were born.” She smothered him with kisses and then put him down. “Don’t say anything to your father,” she added. “He doesn’t understand.” He rather hoped his uncle in Australia wouldn’t leave them too much money. He liked work: fighting with things, conquering them; tidying the workshop; combing the fleas out of his uncle’s dogs. Lighting the kitchen fire was fun even when it was so cold that he wasn’t quite sure he’d a nose on his face and could only tell what his hands were doing by looking at them. You lit the paper and then coaxed and blew and watched the little flame grow bigger, feeding it and guiding it. And when you had won, you warmed your hands. His father had taught him to read during the many hours when there had been nothing else to do. They had sat side by side upon the bench, their legs dangling, holding the open book between them. And writing of a sort he had learnt for himself, having heard his mother regret that she had not studied it herself when young. His mother felt he was predestined to be a great scholar. She wanted to send him to a certain “select preparatory school” kept by two elderly maiden sisters of undoubted gentility. Their prospectus informed the gentry of the neighbourhood that special attention was given by the Misses Warmington to manners and the cultivation of correct behaviour.