tly he asked Henry to change places with him;
and, on this being complied with, he asked the meek woman to read him
Henry's figures, slowly. She stared, but complied. Mr. Bolt pondered
the figures, and examined the drawings again. He then put a number
of questions to Henry, some of them very shrewd; and, at last, got so
interested in the affair that he would talk of nothing else.

As the train slackened for Birmingham, he said to Henry, "I'm no great
scholar; I like to see things in the body. On we go to Hillsborough."

"But I want to talk to a capitalist or two at Birmingham."

"That is not fair; I've got the refusal."

"The deuce you have!"

"Yes, I've gone into it with you; and the others wouldn't listen. Said
so yourself."

"Well, but, Mr. Bolt, are you really in earnest? Surely this is quite
out of your line?"

"How can it be out of my line if it pays? I've bought and sold sheep,
and wool, and land, and water, and houses, and tents, and old clothes,
and coffee, and tobacco, and cabs. And swopped--my eye, how I have
swopped! I've swopped a housemaid under articles for a pew in the
church, and a milch cow for a whale that wasn't even killed yet; I paid
for the chance. I'm at all in the ring, and devilish bad to beat. Here
goes--high, low, Jack, and the game."

"Did you ever deal in small beer?" asked Henry, satirically.

"No," said Bolt, innocently. "But I would in a minute if I saw clear to
the nimble shilling. Well, will you come on to Hillsborough and settle
this? I've got the refusal for twenty-four hours, I consider."

"Oh, if you think so, I will go on to Hillsborough. But you said
you were going to see your parents, after twenty years' absence and
silence."

"So I am; but they can keep; what signifies a day or two more after
twenty years?" He added, rather severely, as one whose superior age
entitled him to play the monitor, "Young man, I never make a toil of a
pleasure."

"No more do I. But how does that apply to visiting your parents?"

"If I was to neglect business to gratify my feelings, I should be
grizzling all the time; and wouldn't that be making a toil of a
pleasure?"

Henry could only grin in reply to this beautiful piece of reasoning; and
that same afternoon the pair were in Hillsborough, and Mr. Bolt, under
Henry's guidance, inspected the grinding of heavy saws, both long and
circular. He noted, at Henry's request, the heavy, dirty labor. He
then mounted to the studio, and there H