So Andy was working hard, no less hard than when he was trying to drag his poor timber business out of the mud, but with far more heart, hope, and zest. He buckled to the figures; he bargained with the gentlemen who wrote the primers, with the printers, and the binders, and the advertisement canvassers; he tracked shy discounts to their lairs, and bagged them; his eye on office expenses was the eye of a lynx. The chickens hatched by Gilly found a loving and assiduous foster-mother. And in September, after the new primers had been packed off to meet the boys going back to school, Andy was to have a holiday; he was looking forward to it intensely. He meant to spend it in attending Harry Belfield on his autumn campaign in the Meriton Division--an odd idea of a holiday to most men's thinking, but Harry was still Harry, and Andy's appetite for new experiences had lost none of its voracity. Meanwhile, for recreation, there was Sunday with its old programme of church, a tramp, and supper with Jack Rock; there was lunch on Friday at the restaurant with the Nun--she never missed Andy's day--and other friends; and on both the Saturdays which followed the Belfields' return home he was bidden to dine at Halton. That the Nun had taken a fancy to him he had been informed by that candid young woman herself; her assurance that he was "attractive" held good as regarded Belfield at least; even Andy's modesty could not deny that. Belfield singled him out for especial attention, drew him out, listened to him, advised him. It was at the first of the two evenings at Halton that he kept Andy with him after dinner, while the rest went into the garden--Wellgood and Vivien were there, but not Isobel, who had pleaded a cold--and insisted on hearing all about his business, listening with evident interest to Andy's description of it and of his partner, Gilly Foot. "And in your holiday you're going to help Harry, I hear?" "Help him!" laughed Andy. "I'm going to listen to him." "I recommend you to try your own hand too. You couldn't have a better opportunity of learning the job than at these village meetings." "I could never do it. It never entered my head. Why, I know nothing!" "More than your audience; that's enough. If you do break down at first, it doesn't matter. After a month of it you wouldn't mind Trafalgar Square." "The--the idea's absolutely new to me." "So have a lot of things been lately, haven't they? And they're turning out well." A slow smile spread over Andy's face. "I should look a fool," he reflected. "Try it," said Belfield, quite content with the reception of his suggestion. He saw that Andy would turn it over in his mind, would give it full, careful, impartial consideration. He was coming to have no small idea of Andy's mind. He passed to another topic. "You were at Nutley two or three times when we were away, Harry tells me. Everything seems going on very pleasantly?"