'No,' said Mrs. Warne; 'but if you can't be of the fondling description, you can be denunciatory――but that requires beetle brows and pebbly eyes. Well, you know best. I can tell you of something else. You go across the way, up street to Thomas Gasset. He was in here the other night having a pipe and glass, and he was saying how he missed Winefred, and how he might have employed her to push his wares in the season――and now she is a grand lady. There is no saying, he may take you on as a traveller; and oh! to be a commercial!' Mrs. Warne held up her hands in ecstasy. 'Commercials is 'eavenly!' So the lad went forth, leaving his half-pint half drunk on the table, to seek the shop of the lapidary. The establishment was small and shabby, but shabbier was the little man with spectacles on his nose and unshaven chin, no collar but a soiled neckcloth, who sat at a table engaged on setting a cut pebble. For some time he did not look up. He continued upon what he was doing; but he had seen the boots and lower portion of the trousers of Jack as he entered, and knew that they did not belong to a purchaser. Consequently he did not hurry nor desist. 'Well?' he asked at length. 'Mr. Gasset,' said Jack, 'I have come to ask you if you require some one to act as your agent with your cut stones, seals, and brooches, and get them disposed of for you.' 'Jane Marley was here proposing the same thing for herself. But I was to take both in. Two women would have eaten all the profits. You are a growing lad, voracious in appetite. I could not afford it.' 'But I would go about.' 'Consider the expense and the uncertainty. I am too old to run risks. The profits are very small. No; I must go on in the old way.' He nodded to Jack to leave. As Jack left the shop Mrs. Gasset entered. 'What has young Rattenbury been here for?' she asked. Gasset slowly informed her, still working at the pebble. 'And you refused him! You are an old idiot. He would have been the making of us, he is so good-looking.' CHAPTER XXV THE STUDY OF A FACE 'I suppose you have not been asked to Bindon?' said Olver, as Jack entered the ferryman's cottage. 'No; for what?' 'Only Mrs. Jose is going to have a Christmas party for her servants and farm labourers, and she always on these occasions invites the young folk of Axmouth, and has the church musicians. I thought it not likely she would have asked you.' 'No, for she knew I could not attend so soon after my father's death.' 'Exactly; I thought as much. She is a motherly body, and always thinks and does the right thing. But for that you would have been invited. I only wish I had been. I have tasted her pickled hams; there are none like them. And she does not stint the liquor. What is the matter with you?' 'I have had some knocks-down. These take the curl out of one's spirits, but I shall be all right again to-morrow.'