"Done for you," he cried, shaking hands. "And now my pipe's out, and we'll go and have dinner. Wait till I roll down my sleeves and get on my stock. Why, you and I will be as jolly as can be here. It's rather a long way to go to your work, but you must get up a bit earlier. Two miles night and morning won't kill you; and I've been thinking what we'll do. You've got your sovereign. We'll go to a place I know, and buy one o' them little iron fold-up bedsteads and a mattress and pillow and blanket, and stand it there. It's breaking into your sov, but then you'll have the bit o' furniture, which will be your property, so the money won't be wasted. What do you say?" I was delighted, and said so. "Well, then, lookye here," he continued, as he took great pains with his hair and whiskers before the glass, and then put on and buttoned up his uniform coat, to stand before me a frank, manly fellow of about thirty, "you're my company this week, and after that you shall put so much of your salary into the stock to pay for living, and we shall both be free and independent, and what's left you can shove in the bank." "In the bank?" "Yes, savings-bank. I don't mind telling you as an old friend I've got forty-four pun ten there." "Mary has thirty-seven pounds in a savings-bank," I said. "Now there's for you!" he said. "Yes, she told me so; but perhaps I oughtn't to have told you." "Well," he said seriously, "I s'pose you oughtn't, because it was told you in confidence, but I'm glad you did. She never told me." "Did you ever tell her how much you had saved?" "No, that I didn't, only as I was saving, so it's all fair. Look here, youngster--I mean Antony," he said, after standing staring in the glass for a few minutes, "I tell you what it is, you coming up has about brought matters to a head." "Has it, Bill?" "Yes, it hayve, my boy. Do you know, I don't for the life of me know why we two have been waiting; do you?" "No," I said shaking my head. "No, nor more don't Mary, I'll bet a sixpence. We got engaged to one another, and then we said as it wouldn't be sensible, to get married at once, as we might both see some one we liked better, don't you see?" "Yes," I said, feeling puzzled all the same, "it was very prudent." "I could have got married lots o' times since, but I've never seen a girl as I liked so well, and I s'pose Mary hasn't seen a chap, for she keeps on writing." "Oh yes; and she thinks a deal of you. She's very proud of you." "Is she, though?" he said, with a satisfied smile, and giving his head a shake in his stock. "Well, then, I tell you what: I'll write and ask Mary to say the day, and then meet her at the station. We'll take a little bigger place, and she'll come up and make us both comfortable. What do you say to that?" I clapped my hands, and he stood smiling in an exceedingly simple way, and looking like a very big overgrown boy, for a few moments, before turning himself round to me.