Ferrar was not there. And Mr. Jones, speaking up, said he had seen nothing of Ferrar since the previous day. He was informed that he had taken French leave to go off somewhere--which kind of leave, in point of fact, he added, Master Ferrar was much in the habit of taking. "But where has he gone?" cried the coroner. "You don't mean he has decamped?" "Decamped for the time being," said Mr. Jones. "He will no doubt put in an appearance in a day or two." Not one of the jury but pricked up his ears; not one, I could see it in their faces, but was beginning to speculate on this absence of Ferrar's. The coroner was staring straight before him, speculating too: and just then Fred Sanker said something in a half-whisper. "Ferrar was with my brother King at the spot where he fell from. As far as we know he was the last person who ever saw him alive." "And not here!" cried the coroner. "Why is he not? Where does the neglect lie, I wonder? Gentlemen, I think we had better send round for his father, and ask an explanation." In a small town like Worcester (small in comparison with great capitals) the inhabitants, rich and poor, mostly know one another, what they are, and where their dwelling is. Old Ferrar lived within a stone's-throw of the Angel; he was a china painter, employed by the Messrs. Chamberlain. Some one ran for him; and he came; a tidy-looking man in a good coat, with grey whiskers and grey hair. He bowed civilly to the room, and gave his name as Thomas Ferrar. As far as anything connected with what took place at Malvern he was in total ignorance, he said. When his son Mark got home on the Tuesday night, he had told him that Captain Sanker's little boy had fallen down a part of the hill, and that he, Mark, had been one of those who helped to find him. In the afternoon of the same day they heard the little boy had died. "Where is your son?" asked the coroner. "I am not sure where he is," replied Thomas Ferrar. "When I and his brother got home from the factory on Wednesday evening, my daughter told me Mark had gone off again. Somebody had given him half-a-crown, I believe. With that in his pocket, he was pretty sure to go off on one of his rovings." "He is in the habit of going off, then?" "Yes, sir, he has done it on occasion almost ever since he could run alone. I used to leather him well for it, but it was of no use; it didn't stop it. It's his only fault. Barring that, he's as good and upright a lad as anybody need have. He does not go off for the purpose of doing harm: neither does he get into any." "Where does he go to?" "Always to one of two places; to South Crabb, or to his grandfather's at Pinvin. It's generally to South Crabb, to see the Batleys, who are cousins of my late wife's. They've boys and girls of Mark's own age, and he likes to be there." "You conclude, then, that he is at one of these places now?"