That evening the old surgeon dropped his paper and looked over his pince-nez at his wife and daughter. "My dears," he said, "I've some good news for you." "I know," replied Bess, scornfully. "Your Lloyd George is coming down in January to speak on his iniquitous Budget. I knew that, thank you!" "Better even than that," her father answered. "Alfred Caspar's leaving me of his own accord." The girl tossed her skein of coloured silk to the ceiling with a splendid gesture. "Chuck-_her_-up!" she cried. "Do you hear, mother?" "I do," answered Mrs. Trupp severely. "Better late than never." "And I'm losing the best chauffeur in East Sussex," Mr. Trupp continued. Alf, indeed, who had paddled his little canoe for so long and so successfully on the Beachbourne mill-pond, was now about to launch a larger vessel on the ocean of the world in obedience to the urge of that ambition which, apart from a solitary lapse, had been the consuming passion of his life. Unlike most men, however, who, as they become increasingly absorbed in their own affairs, tend to drop outside interests, he persisted loyally in old-time activities. Whether it was that his insatiable desire for power forbade him to abandon any position, however modest, which afforded him scope; or that he felt it more necessary than ever now, in the interests of his expanding career, to maintain and if possible improve his relations with the Church and State which exercised so potent a control in the sphere in which he proposed to operate; or that the genuinely honest workman in him refused to abandon a job to which he had once put his hand, it is the fact that he continued diligent in his office at St. Michael's, and manifested even increased zeal in his labours for the National Service League. Alf, indeed, so distinguished himself by his services to the League that at the annual meeting at the Town Hall, he received public commendation both from the Archdeacon and the Colonel, who announced that "the admirable and indefatigable secretary of our Old Town branch, Mr. Alfred Caspar, has agreed to become District Convener." That meeting was a red-letter day in the history of the Beachbourne National Service League, for at it the Colonel disclosed that Lord Roberts was coming down to speak. CHAPTER X BOBS The old Field-Marshal, wise and anxious as a great doctor, was sitting now at the bedside of the patient that was his country. His finger was on her pulse, his eye on the hourglass, the sands of which were running out; and he was listening always for the padding feet of that Visitor whose knock on the door he expected momentarily. After South Africa he had sheathed at last the sword which had not rested in its scabbard for fifty years; and from that moment his eyes were everywhere, watching, guiding, cherishing the movement to which he had given birth.