In the train he set the matter fairly and clearly before me. "I am going to this place, Charlie, on a matter of business," he said in a low tone, and without looking at me. "Old Patton, as we call him in the business, likes to make a friend of me as much as possible; I have been down here frequently. It gives me a certain position with him--smooths business generally. I can't say exactly how long I shall stop at his house; he does not come up to the office as frequently as he used to do, and there are certain matters he wants to discuss with me." "It is very kind of you to take me with you," I said; but with a grim smile he broke in on my enthusiasm. "Oh, I'm not taking you to the house," he said, "I shall have to leave you at the _George_. I intend, if possible, to get an invitation for you to dinner one night--or perhaps to a luncheon; but at the moment I merely want Patton to know that you are there, and who you are. He will probably like to know that I am your guardian, and"--he hesitated for a moment as though casting about in his mind for the right word--"and responsible for you." I have since come to think that whatever scheme was in the mind of the man then, and whatever he meant to do, his real object in taking me there, to begin with, was no deeper than that. I think he felt that it would look well that he should have the responsibility of me upon his shoulders--that it would give him an air of stability, and would cause people to think well of him--much as though he held before himself the record of a good deed as a species of shield, and cried--"This have I done--and that; judge me in the light of it." So it came about that I was left at the _George_ in the little town of Hammerstone Market, while Jervis Fanshawe went on to the house of Mr. Patton, which lay a little outside the town. The country round about seemed to be very pretty, and I was free to do as I liked until such time as my guardian should call upon me to go back to London, or to visit him at the house of his patron. I liked the look of the little old-fashioned hotel, and I liked the prospect of this new freedom, as I unpacked my bag that first night, in my room that overlooked the sleepy little High Street of the town.