“I’ve just been getting Miss Lancaster’s opinion on your local charities,” he remarked, putting his big, kindly person between the two. “I’m a whale at charities--you just ask our Dandy Anne! They’re a sort of hobby of mine, and I’m glad to have a bit of advice from somebody who knows what’s worth helping. Mother, give Miss Lancaster another cup of tea!” “Hamer doesn’t count life worth living if he hasn’t a hand in somebody’s pie,” his wife added, comfortably following on. “There was one whole year I declare he talked of nothing but overworked tram-horses! I’m glad to see you, Mr. Lancaster! You know Dandy there, I fancy? That’s Mr. Wigmore, an old friend of ours from our old home.” Lanty found himself engineered to a chair beside the daughter of the house, while his aunt hurried clinking coins into her purse behind Hamer’s broad back. “You needn’t scowl at old Helwise like that!” Harriet flung at him, brutally undoing the family diplomacy in a breath. “Why shouldn’t she go round catching pennies if she wants? It’s no business of yours!” Lanty looked at her seethingly, the memory of the bicycle handle still rankling, but before he could answer, Wiggie was at his elbow with a teacup. He remembered him now as the singer in the Lane, and a further memory, of much older standing, fretted vainly at the back of his brain. A moment later he heard him telling Helwise that he had found half a sovereign in the gutter, and couldn’t in conscience spend it on himself. The gentle voice was so convincing, the purring answer so ecstatic, that he smiled unwillingly, meeting deprecating flower-blue eyes at his side. “It seems so rotten to rook you at a first call!” he broke out. “I expect you’ve come up against a fearful lot of that sort of thing already, and it can’t impress you very favourably. That’s the worst of the country. Everybody has some sort of a show wanting a leg-up, and all the giving falls on the same people. You’ve got to help, even when you’re not interested, or half the things would never run at all. But new-comers should have a certain amount of rope. You must stand out when it gets to rank robbery, and ask for time!”