"Look here, Alf," growled the great man. "I'm never going to own one of those things. But I've got to use one to get about. If you like to do my driving we'll arrange something."
Alf's attitude to life changed in the twinkling of an eye.
He bustled home that evening, a new man.
"All O.K.," he called to his mother. "I got me first contract."
"What?" she asked sullenly.
"Driving for Mr. Trupp."
She took a saucepan off the fire.
"Then you're a made man," she said; and she did not exaggerate.
The job, or as Alf preferred to call it, the contract, meant honour; it meant money; it meant—above all—a start. Mr. Trupp had been for long the first surgeon in Sussex: since the operation, as daring as discreet, by which he had preserved the life of a Balkan Tsar to disgrace a throne, his fame had become world-wide.
That evening, uplifted on a wave of humility and thankfulness, Alf walked to Mr. Pigott's house and apologized to him.