errin, 'now you've got it. I made your bricks, seasoned
oak, and true to the thousandth of an inch, they was. And that's how I
got here. So now you know.'

'But what are you doing here?' said Philip, wriggling restlessly on the
fallen column.

'Waiting for you. Them as knows sent me out to meet you, and give you a
hint of what's expected of you.'

'Well. What _is_?' said Philip. 'I mean I think it's very kind of you.
What _is_ expected?'

'Plenty of time,' said the carpenter, 'plenty. Nothing ain't expected of
you till towards sundown.'

'I do think it was most awfully kind of you,' said Philip, who had now
thought this over.

'You was kind to old Perrin once,' said that person.

'Was I?' said Philip, much surprised.

'Yes; when my little girl was ailing you brought her a lot of pears off
your own tree. Not one of 'em you didn't 'ave yourself that year, Miss
Helen told me. And you brought back our kitten--the sandy and white one
with black spots--when it strayed. So I was quite willing to come and
meet you when so told. And knowing something of young gentlemen's
peckers, owing to being in business once next door to a boys' school, I
made so bold as to bring you a snack.'

He reached a hand down behind the fallen pillar on which they sat and
brought up a basket.

'Here,' he said. And Philip, raising the lid, was delighted to find that
he was hungry. It was a pleasant basketful. Meat pasties, red hairy
gooseberries, a stone bottle of ginger-beer, a blue mug with Philip on
it in gold letters, a slice of soda cake and two farthing sugar-sticks.

'I'm sure I've seen that basket before,' said the boy as he ate.

'Like enough. It's the one you brought them pears down in.'

'Now look here,' said Philip, through his seventh bite of pasty, 'you
_must_ tell me how you got here. And tell me where you've got to. You've
simply no idea how muddling it all is to me. Do tell me _everything_.
Where are we, I mean, and why? And what I've got to do. And why? And
when? Tell me every single thing.' And he took the eighth bite.

'You really don't know, sir?'

'No,' said Philip, contemplating the ninth or last bite but one. It was
a large pasty.

'Well then. Here goes. But I was always a poor speaker, and so
considered even by friends at cricket dinners and what not.'

'But I don't want you to speak,' said Philip; 'just tell me.'

'Well, then. How did I get here? I got here through having made them
bricks what you built