; bolts, so much; nails; time;" Ted heard him half
whispering to himself. Then he looked up.

"A matter of three shilling or so, sir," he replied. "I'll try that it
shan't be more. But you see the bolts I have to buy, they're not things
as we use every day. And for the time, sir, I'm not thinking much of
that. The evenings are light now. I'll try and see to it myself after
work's over."

"Thank you very much, Mr. Newton," said Ted. "I think it'll be all
right. But I'd like first to tell my mother how much it will cost, and
then I'll run back and settle about it."

"All right, sir," the carpenter replied; and after pausing a moment at
the door to pat the great big gentle dog, that was lying there blinking
in the sunshine, and thinking to himself that its eyes somehow reminded
him of long ago Cheviott whom Ted still remembered, though Newton's dog
wasn't at all the same kind, the boy ran off again, whistling as he
went, with light dancing steps down the in-and-out zigzag streets of the
old town, stopping a moment, eager as he was, to admire the peeps of
lovely view he came upon now and then as he turned a corner, or crossed
the open market-place.

He was in great spirits. Fivepence short he felt sure could easily be
made up.

"Either mother will give it me," he thought, "or she'll find some way of
my earning it. I'm sure she'd like it properly done, and there'll be no
fear of Cissy or me hurting ourselves."

On he danced again, for now he was in more open ground, running along
the country highroad where was his home. A few cottages stood not far
from where he was passing--cottages of respectable people, with several
of whom sociable Ted was on friendly terms, and just as he was nearing
the first of these, a boy about his own age came out, a basket on his
arm and in his hands something tied up in a cloth which he was carrying
carefully. But boys will be boys!

"Good morning, Jamie," said Ted as they met, for he recognised the boy
as the son of a man living farther down the road, who had sometimes
worked for his father; "where have you been, and what's that you've
got?" and in pure fun Ted tapped with a switch he was carrying on the
mysterious bundle.

Jamie looked up laughingly.

"O Master Ted," he was just beginning, but somehow--_how_ I cannot tell,
and I feel pretty sure that neither Ted nor Jamie could have told
either--Ted's friendly tap had either distracted his attention so that
he trod on a stone and lo