This had, indeed, been more than half promised. Mr. Basingstoke was one of those persons whom their friends call thorough; their enemies say that they carry everything too far. If he did a thing at all, he liked to do it thoroughly. If he wrote a duty-letter to an aunt, he wrote a long one, and made it amusing. As often as not he would illustrate it with little pictures. If he gave a shilling to a beggar he would immediately add tobacco and agreeable conversation. One of his first acts, on coming into his inheritance, had been to pension his old nurse, who was poor and a widow with far too many children--too many, because she was a widow and poor and had to go out to work instead of looking after her family, as she wanted to do. Any one else would have written and told her she was to have two pounds a week as long as she lived. Edward sent her a large box of hot-house flowers--her birthday happening to occur at about that date--the most expensive and beautiful flowers he could find, anonymously. Then he sent her a fat hamper bursting with excellent things to eat and drink--and a box of toys and clothes for the children. The lady who "served" him with the clothes was amused at his choice--but approved it. And in the end he told his solicitors--smiling to himself at the novel possession--to write and tell the woman that an old employer had secured her an annuity. Later he went down to see her, to find her incredibly happy and prosperous, and to hear the wonderful and mysterious tale. So now, in the case of Tommy, most people would have thought an aeroplane and a motor-ride as much as any little boy could expect. But Mr. Basingstoke liked to give people much more than they could expect. It was not enough to give them enough. He liked to give a feast. That evening after tea, Tommy breathing hard on the back of his neck, he sketched the water-wheel with the highest degree of precision and a superfluous wealth of detail. But the thought was with him through it all. Next morning he went to the trysting-place, through the fresh, sweet morning. He climbed the wall, sat down on the log, and waited. He waited an hour, and she did not come. It says a good deal for his tenacity of purpose that when he went home he began at once on the water-wheel.