mised us a bob each if we did it."

"Meanwhile he went to Hereford and back?"

"I s'pose so, sir."

Peter Vanrenen's attention was held by that guarded answer, and, being
an American, he was ever ready to absorb information, especially in
matters appertaining to figures.

"What was the sum?" he said.

To his very keen annoyance he found that he could not determine
straight off how long two men take to mow a field of grass, which one
of them could cut in four days and the other in three. Indeed, he
almost caught himself saying "three days and a half," but stopped
short of that folly.

"About a day and three-quarters," he essayed, before the silence grew
irksome.

"Wrong, sir. Is it worth a bob?" and the urchin grinned delightfully.

"Yes," he said.

"A day an' five-sevenths, 'coss one man can do one quarter in a day,
and t'other man a third, which is seven-twelfths, leavin'
five-twelfths to be done next day."

Though the millionaire financier was nettled, he did not show it, but
paid the shilling with apparent good grace.

"Did _you_ find that out--or was it Dick Davies?" he asked.

"Both of us, sir, wiv' a foot rule."

"And how far is the Symon's Yat Hotel, measured by that rule?"

"Half a mile, sir, down that there lane."

While traveling slowly in the narrow way, Simmonds turned his head.

"It doesn't follow that because the boy saw Viscount Medenham
yesterday his lordship is here now, sir," he said.

"You just do as you are told and pass no remarks," snapped Vanrenen.

If the head of the house of Vanrenen were judged merely by that
somewhat unworthy retort he would not be judged fairly. He was tired
physically, worried mentally; he had been brought from Paris at an
awkward moment; he was naturally devoted to his daughter; he believed
that Medenham was an unmitigated scamp and Simmonds his tool; and his
failure to solve Medenham's arithmetical problem still rankled. These
considerations, among others, may be pleaded in his behalf.

But, if Simmonds, who had stood on Spion Kop, refused to be browbeaten
by a British earl, he certainly would not grovel before an American
plutocrat. He had endured a good deal since five o'clock that morning.
He told his tale honestly and fully; he even sympathized with a
father's distress, though assured in his own mind that it was wholly
unwarranted; he was genuinely sorry on hearing that Mr. Vanrenen had
been searching the many hotels of Bristol for two hours bef