A few days later, on a Saturday afternoon, the Colonel was sitting in the loggia of the hostel looking out over the sea when he saw two men coming down the shoulder of Beau-nez along the coast-guard path.
The tall man in black with flying coat-tails he recognised at once. It was Mr. Geddes, the one outstanding minister of the Gospel in Beachbourne: a scholar, yet in touch with his own times, eloquent and broad, with a more than local reputation as a Liberal leader. His companion was a sturdy fellow in a cap, with curly black hair and a merry eye.
The Colonel, who never missed a chance, went out to waylay the pair. Mr. Geddes introduced his friend—Mr. Burt, who'd come down recently from Mather and Platt's in the North to act as foreman fitter at Hewson and Clarke's in the East-end.
The Colonel reached out a bony hand, which the other gripped fiercely.
"I know you're both conspirators," he said with a wary smile. "What troubles are you hatching for me now?"
Mr. Geddes laughed, and the engineer, surly a little from shyness and self-conscious as a school-boy, grinned.
"Mr. Burt and I are both keen on education," said the minister. "He's been telling me of Tawney's tutorial class at Rochdale. We're hatching a branch of the W.E.A. down here. That's our only conspiracy."
"What's the W.E.A.?" asked the Colonel, always keen.
"It's the Democratic wing of the National Service League," the engineer answered in broad Lancashire—"Workers' Education Association."
The Colonel nodded.