oney in cranks and eccentrics
than in toffee and hard-bake. Good-bye."

And he was gone as suddenly, so it seemed to Vane, as he had come.

It was then that Vane heard his aunt say:

"Well, my dear, I hope it is for the best. It will be a very serious
thing for us if it should go wrong."

"Very," said the doctor drily; and Vane wondered what it might be.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

OILING THE CLOCK.

The plan of the town of Mavis Greythorpe was very simple, being one long
street with houses on either side, placed just as the builders pleased.
Churchwarden Rounds' long thatched place stood many yards back, which
was convenient, for he liked to grow roses that his neighbours could see
and admire. Crumps the cowkeeper's, too, stood some distance back, but
that was handy, for there was room for the cowshed and the dairy close
to the path. Dredge, the butcher, had his open shop, too--a separate
building from the house at the back--close to the path, where customers
could see the mortal remains of one sheep a week, sometimes two, and in
the cold weather a pig, and a half or third of a "beast," otherwise a
small bullock, the other portions being retained by neighbouring
butchers at towns miles away, where the animal had been slain. But at
fair time and Christmas, Butcher, or, as he pronounced it, Buttcher
Dredge, to use his own words, "killed hissen" and a whole bullock was on
exhibition in his open shop.

The houses named give a fair idea of the way in which architecture was
arranged for in Mavis; every man who raised a house planted it where it
seemed good in his own eyes; and as in most cases wayfarers stepped down
out of the main street into the front rooms, the popular way of building
seemed to have been that the builder dug a hole and then put a house in
it.

Among those houses which were flush with the main street was that of
Michael Chakes, clerk and sexton, who was also the principal shoemaker
of Mavis, and his place of business was a low, open-windowed room with
bench and seat, where, when not officially engaged, he sat at work,
surrounded by the implements and products of his trade, every now and
then opening his mouth and making a noise after repeating a couple of
lines, under the impression that he was singing. Upon that point
opinions differed.

Vane Lee wanted a piece of leather, and as there was nothing at home
that he could cut up, saving one of the doctor's Wellington boots, which
were nearly new