"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.