l be hardly
any marks left after all."

It was a long business putting the unlucky tricycle in order. Jeffreys
was not a mechanic. All he could do was to put the parts together in a
makeshift way, and by straightening some of the bent parts and greasing
some of the stiff parts restore the iron horse into a gloomy semblance
of his old self.

The boys were as grateful and delighted as if he had constructed a new
machine out of space; and when at last a trial trip demonstrated that at
any rate the wheels would go round and the saddle would carry them,
their hearts overflowed.

"You are a real brick, Jeff," said Teddy; "I wish I could give you a
hundred pounds!"

"I don't want a hundred pounds," said Jeffreys, with a smile; "if you
and Freddy and I are good friends, that's worth a lot more to me."

"Why?" demanded Freddy; "are we the only friends you've got?"

Jeffreys looked out of the window and said,--

"Not quite--I've got one more."

"Who--God?" asked the boy naturally.

Poor Jeffreys! He sometimes forgot that Friend, and it startled and
humbled him to hear the little fellow's simple question.

"Of course, he's got Him," interposed Teddy, without giving him time to
reply. "But who else, Jeff?"

"I saw him not long ago," said Jeffreys. "His name's Julius."

"You don't like him more than us, do you?" asked Teddy rather anxiously.

"Not a quarter as much, old chap," said Jeffreys.

There was a pause, during which Trimble chuckled to think how little the
speaker guessed into whose ears he was betraying the name of his
villainous accomplice! Presently, however, he started to hear the sound
of his own name.

"Jeff," said Teddy, "isn't Mr Trimble a beast?"

"Let's talk about something pleasant," suggested Jeffreys, by way of
begging the question.

"Let's talk about hanging him; that would be pleasant," said Teddy.

"Would you be sorry if he was dead?" demanded Teddy, in his matter-of-
fact way. "I say, Jeff, wouldn't it be jolly if we could kill everybody
we hated?"

"Wouldn't it be jolly if every little boy who talked like a little
donkey were to have his ears boxed?" said Jeffreys.

"I wish he'd been on the tricycle instead of mother," continued Teddy,
with a sigh of content at the bare idea.

"Teddy, you are not as nice a little boy as I thought when you talk like
that," said Jeffreys. "Come and let's have one more turn on the
machine, and then I must hurry back, or Mrs Trimble will think