“Oh! Well, here’s two shillings for you. Don’t spend it _all_ on sweets.” “Not me,” said the boy with a grin. “I’m saving up, I am.” “Indeed! What for?” “Why, for heaps of things. I want a model of a four-coupled bogie tank engine, and a model of a turbine steamer, and a motor bicycle——” “Steady, youngster. That’s rather a _large_ order, isn’t it? You’ve got a fancy for mechanics, eh!” “Mechanics! Not me! That’s what they teach in the seventh standard. I like engines, I do—machines that’ll go. I’m going to be an engineer some day—if I can; feyther says it costs a mint of money, and he hasn’t got much, and he says he don’t hold with flying too high, and I’d much better be a smith. But there’s nothing new in smith’s work: you just go on shoeing horses, and sticking fellies on wheels, and mending prams and motor-cars now and then. I want to do something new, I do.” “Ah! What’s your father’s name?” “Dorrell, same as mine.” “Naturally. And what do you call your village?” “Barton Abbas.” “Well, Tom, here’s your two shillings. You’ve got a bank-book, I suppose.” “Rather. I’ve got three pounds fourteen and ninepence; this makes sixteen and ninepence. I shall have another sixpence on Saturday for cleaning pa’son’s bicycle; that’ll make seventeen and threepence. Pa’son gives me sixpence a week.” “You’re getting quite rich, you know. Well, Tom, thanks to you I _shall_ get home in time for dinner.” “I’m pretty hungry,” said Tom. “I guess it’s past my tea-time.” “No doubt it is. _Strawberry_ jam, eh?” “No. Mother says that’s too dear. We have rhubarb and marrow, growed in the garden.” “And very good stuff, too. _By George!_ I haven’t had marrow jam for forty years.” “You be pretty old then: older than feyther.” “Well, d’you know, Tom, I am _several years_ younger than I was two hours ago. Good-bye!” CHAPTER II—HERR SCHWAB One spring day, rather more than six years after the meeting of Mr. Greatorex and Tom Dorrell by Five Oaks Bridge, a shabby pony cart was jogging along the road that led from the little railway station of Midfont, through the sleepy village of the same name, to Midfont House, the rural retreat to which Mr. Greatorex betook himself from his business in the great manufacturing town of Burlingham some dozen miles away. The sole occupant of the cart was a large florid man of about forty-five, who eyed the surroundings curiously through heavy gold-rimmed spectacles, the sluggish pony he drove requiring little attention. His costume, no less than his spectacles, was strangely out of keeping with the cart. That would have been a fit setting for a farm-hand, or a carrier, or some other wearer of fustian. But its present occupant was attired in a well-cut grey frock-coat, silk lined, a glossy silk hat, a lilac-coloured necktie in which flashed a diamond pin, and trousers of large check pattern. His hands were gloved in brown kid; between his teeth he held a long cigar.