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."