tell ye what she _did_ do," Thomas Chadwick went on, anxious,
now that he had begun so well, to bring the matter to an artistic
conclusion--"I'll tell ye what she did do. She give me a sovereign
apiece for my grandsons--my eldest daughter's twins." Then, after an
effective pause: "Ye can put that in your pipe and smoke it!... A
sovereign apiece!"

"And have you handed it over?" Paul Ford inquired mildly, after a
period of soft whistling.

"I've started two post-office savings bank accounts for 'em," said
Thomas Chadwick, with ferocity.

The talk stopped, and nothing whatever occurred until the car halted at
the railway station to take up passengers. The heart of Thomas Chadwick
gave a curious little jump when he saw Mrs Clayton Vernon coming out of
the station and towards his car. (Her horses must have been still lame
or her coachman still laid aside.) She boarded the car, smiling with a
quite particular effulgence upon Thomas Chadwick, and he greeted her
with what he imagined to be the true antique chivalry. And she sat down
in the corner opposite to Paul Ford, beaming.

When Thomas Chadwick came, with great respect, to demand her fare, she
said:

"By the way, Chadwick, it's such a short distance from the station to
the town, I think I should have walked and saved a penny. But I wanted
to speak to you. I wasn't aware, last Tuesday, that your other daughter
got married last year and now has a dear little baby. I gave you
threepenny bits each for those dear little twins. Here's another one for
the other baby, I think I ought to treat all your grandchildren
alike--otherwise your daughters might be jealous of each other"--she
smiled archly, to indicate that this passage was humorous--"and there's
no knowing what might happen!"

Mrs Clayton Vernon always enunciated her remarks in a loud and clear
voice, so that Paul Ford could not have failed to hear every word. A
faint but beatific smile concealed itself roguishly about Paul Ford's
mouth, and he looked with a rapt expression on an advertisement above
Mrs Clayton Vernon's head, which assured him that, with a certain soap,
washing-day became a pleasure.

Thomas Chadwick might have flung the threepenny bit into the road. He
might have gone off into language unseemly in a tram-conductor and a
grandfather. He might have snatched Mrs Clayton Vernon's bonnet off and
stamped on it. He might have killed Paul Ford (for it was certainly Paul
Ford with whom he was the most an