ies of the genii you was a-telling me about--chaps as come
whenever yer rubbed a ring or an old lamp, and brought a tuck-out or
whatever yer asked for. Of course that wasn't true; yer told me it
wasn't, and I shouldn't have believed it if yer hadn't, but this 'ere
is true. Now I sees, George, as what yer said was right and what I
said was wrong. I thought yer were a flat 'cause yer wouldn't take
nothing for getting back that there locket, and now yer see what's
come of it, two good berths for us and a Christmas dinner fit for a
king. Now what are we going to do with it, 'cause yer know we dines
with them downstairs to-morrow?"

"The best thing we can do, I think," George answered, "will be to
invite all of them downstairs, Bob Grimstone, his wife, and the three
young uns, to supper, not to-morrow night nor the night after, because
I shan't be back from Croydon till late, but say the evening after."

"But we can't hold them all," Bill said, looking round the room.

"No, we can't hold them here, certainly, but I dare say they will let
us have the feed in their parlor. There will be nothing to get, you
know, but some bread and butter, and some beer for Bob. Mrs. Grimstone
don't take it, so we must have plenty of tea."

"I should like some beer too, just for once, George, with such a
blow-out as that."

"No, no, Bill, you and I will stick to tea. You know we agreed that we
wouldn't take beer. If we begin it once we shall want it again, so we
are not going to alter from what we agreed to. We see plenty of the
misery which drink causes all round and the way in which money is
wasted over it. I like a glass of beer as well as you do, and when I
get to be a man I dare say I shall take a glass with my dinner
regularly, though I won't do even that if I find it makes me want to
take more; but anyhow at present we can do without it."

Bill agreed, and the dinner-party downstairs and the supper two nights
afterwards came off in due course, and were both most successful.

The acknowledgment of the gift had been a matter of some trouble to
George, but he had finally bought a pretty New Year's card and had
written on the back, "with the grateful thanks of George Andrews," and
had sent it to the daughter of his employer.

At the beginning of April George had consulted Grimstone and his wife
as to the question of preparing a home for his mother.

"How much would two rooms cost?" he had asked; "one a good-sized one
and the other