He found his father kneeling beside a common deal box, the contents of which were flung upon the floor. These contents appeared to consist of old discarded clothing, among which were discernible a blue cloth cap, a rough jacket, and a pair of stained corduroy trousers. "Do you know what these are, Arthur?" "No. What are they, father?" "They're the clothes I used to wear when I was a workman. I've always kept them by me--sort of souvenir, you know. Well, I'm going to wear them again." "But, father, I don't understand," "Don't you?" he said grimly. "Well, I'll tell you. I'm going to work again. Going back to what I was forty years ago. It's as good as a story, isn't it?" "But you're not going to be a common workman. You surely don't mean that, father." "That's just what I do mean. You can work with your hands, and so can I. I reckon it's our destiny. Grimes has given me a job--you remember Grimes, don't you? He's a bit of a builder at Tottenham nowadays, and calls himself a contractor. Well, he's given me a job, sort of foreman, at two quid a week, and good pay, too. It's a sight more than I'd have done for an old bankrupt fellow, close on sixty. I'm going to work for Grimes. I begin to-morrow, and you'll have to put up with the fact the best way you can that your father's no longer Archibold Masterman, Esq., as might have been Sir Archibold, but just a common workman." XXII MRS. BUNDY PHILOSOPHISES "I can't see what your father wanted to do it for. He had no call to do it. It's a most extraordinary piece of perversity." The speaker was Bundy, and the scene was his new house in Kensington. After his many wanderings and adventures, Bundy appeared to have found permanent anchorage at last. His final apotheosis had begun, and a prophetic eye perceived that it was likely to include all the elements of eminent British respectability. He had begun to collect pictures again, was planning a library, drove daily in the park, was already known as a generous patron of many well-intentioned charities, and had even lectured in a parish-room on the wonders of the Yukon. There was ground to believe that in course of time he might even become a churchwarden, and it was only a total fluidity of opinion on local politics which denied him a seat upon the Borough Council. Even the boys had suffered a transformation into something rare and strange. They no longer lassoed dogs upon the plains of Texas in the back-garden, and their interest in Indians had declined. They wore white collars which were fresh every morning, practised a difficult propriety, and walked gravely to church on Sundays, top-hatted and circumspectly clothed. There could be no manner of doubt that the short-lived glory of irresponsible poverty was fast fading into the light of common day, and that shades of respectability were closing round these growing minds.