Eton suit, a low-cut
white waistcoat, and a white tie, there was something in what she said.

At the sight of them Sir Tancred smiled, and Lord Crosland said, "I
congratulate you on your taste, young people."

"It was Tinker's," said Elsie; and she looked at him with a world of
thankfulness and devotion in her eyes.

After dinner Tinker was uncomfortable. He felt bound to break to Elsie
her uncle's desertion, and he was afraid of tears. With a vague notion
of emphasising the difference between her uncle's _regime_ and his own,
he led the way to the corner of the gardens where they had first met
and, standing before the seat on which she had waited so long and
hungrily, he said, "I say, don't you think we could do without your
uncle?"

"Do without uncle?" said Elsie surprised.

"Yes; suppose, instead of living with your uncle and his looking after
you, you lived with us, and I looked after you? Suppose you were to be
my adopted sister?"

"For good and all?" said Elsie in a hushed voice.

"Yes."

For answer she threw her arms round his neck, kissed him, and cried,
"Oh, I do love you so."

By a splendid effort Tinker repressed a wriggle.

"We'll consider it settled, then," he said.

Elsie loosed him. With a little deprecating cough, and a delicate
tentativeness, he said, "About kissing, of course, now that you're my
sister you have a right to kiss me sometimes; and--and--of course it's
all right. But don't you think you could manage with once a day--when
we say good-night?"

"In the morning, too," said Elsie greedily.

"Well, twice a day," said Tinker with a sigh.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TINKER FROM THE MACHINE

By Elsie's coming into it, Tinker's life was changed. At first she was
not only a companion, she was an occupation. A score of little
arrangements to secure her greater comfort had to be made, each of them
after careful consideration. He was no longer dull: they were together
from morning till night; and he found in her a considerable aptitude
for the post of lieutenant--to a Pirate Captain, a Smuggler, a Brigand
Chief, or a South African Scout. She kept him out of mischief as far
as he could be kept out of mischief: the demands her welfare made upon
his intelligence prevented his devoting it to the elaboration of
ingenious schemes for the discomfiture of his fellow-creatures; and he
had to think twice before he flung himself into any casual piece of
mischief which presented itself, le