“Who the devil would have thought that the chap had it in him?” As for young Wingfield, he was nearly as much puzzled by the issue of his interview with Mr. Dunning as that gentleman was himself. When Dunning had left the house Jack hurried to the breakfast-room, whistling an uncertain air. The butler blew out the spirit lamp that heated the breakfast dishes, and laid the latter on the table, with the coffee. But the moment he had left the room, Jack Wingfield put his hands in his pockets and walked away from the breakfast table to one of the windows, and, standing with his legs apart, stared out, allowing his omelette to get chilled and the coffee milk to get a surface on it. Jack Wingfield was also puzzled to account for all that had occurred. Dunning had always occupied in his mind a place of the deepest respect; and his attainments he had been accustomed to think of with something little less than awe. And yet he had been able within twenty-four hours to discover his gross incompetence and, moreover, to tell him of it, and to send him away with no more ceremony than he had thought necessary to employ in clearing out Farmer Verrall and his greyhounds! The whole thing was too wonderful to be grasped immediately by such an intellect as his. It required a deal of thinking out; so he stood at the window staring at the garden for several minutes. At last he too thought that he might make a brief summary of the situation and its development up to that moment. He whirled round and gazed at the breakfast things. Then he removed his hands from his pockets, and doubling up his right struck the palm of his left vigorously, saying: “By the Lord Harry! She has made a man of me!” CHAPTER XVII When he told her that his mother would be greatly pleased if she would pay her a visit, her face became roseate. She hesitated before answering him. She had usually her wits about her, and rarely failed to see in a moment the end of a matter of which the beginning was suggested to her; but now everything before her was blurred. She could not utter even the merest commonplace word in response.