from London was really short, it took them fully two hours to
reach their destination. And two hours on a raw drizzly November morning
is quite a long enough time to spend in a third-class carriage, shivering
if the windows are down, and suffering on the other hand from the odours
of damp fustian and bad tobacco if they are up.

Cold as it was, it seemed pleasant in comparison when they got out at
last, and were making their way down a very muddy, but really country
lane. Geoff gave a sort of snort of satisfaction.

"I do love the country," he said.

His companion looked at him curiously.

"I believe you, sir," he replied. "You must like it, to find it pleasant
in November," he went on, with a tone which made Geoff glance at him in
surprise. Somehow in the last few words the countryman's accent seemed
to have changed a little. Geoff could almost have fancied there was a
cockney twang about it.

"Why, don't _you_ like it?" said Geoff. "You said you were lost and
miserable in town."

"Of course, sir. What else could I be? I'm country born and bred. But
it's not often as a Londoner takes to it as you do, and it's not to say
lively at this time, and"--he looked down with a grimace--"the lanes is
uncommon muddy."

"How far is it to your friend's place?" Geoff inquired, thinking to
himself that if _he_ were to remark on the mud it would not be
surprising, but that it was rather curious for his companion to do so.

"A matter of two mile or so," Jowett--for Ned Jowett, he had told Geoff,
was his name--replied; "and now I come to think of it, perhaps it'd be
as well for you to leave your bag at the station. I'll see that it's all
right; and as you're not sure of stopping at Crickwood, there's no sense
in carrying it there and maybe back again for nothing. I'll give it in
charge to the station-master, and be back in a moment."

He had shouldered it and was hastening back to the station almost before
Geoff had time to take in what he said. The boy stood looking after him
vaguely. He was beginning to feel tired and a little dispirited. He did
not feel as if he could oppose anything just then.

"If he's a cheat and he's gone off with my bag, I just can't help it,"
he thought. "He won't gain much. Still, he looks honest."

And five minutes later the sight of the young man's cheery face as he
hastened back removed all his misgivings.

"All right, sir," he called out. "It'll be quite safe; and if by chance
you hit it off