This was to Dick, and he and Jack stared at one another. Certainly their visit to Gaffer Hodge had paid them well.
"Are you sure of that, Gaffer?" asked Jack, quietly. "Sure that it was an automobile from Bray Park?"
"Sure as ever was!" said the old man, indignantly. Like all old people, he hated anyone to question him, resenting the idea that anyone could think he was mistaken. "Didn't I see the machine myself–a big grey one, with black stripes as ever was, like all their automobiles?"
"That's true–that's the way their cars are painted, and they have five or six of them," said Jack.
"Yes. And he come in the car from Lunnon before he went there–and then he come out here. He saw you and t'other young lad from Lunnon go by, maister, on your bicycles. He was watching you from the shop as ever was!"
"Thank you, Gaffer," said Jack, gravely. "You've told us just what we wanted to know. I'll bring you some tobacco in the morning, if you like. My father's just got a new lot down from London."
"Thanks, thank'ee kindly," said the Gaffer, overjoyed at the prospect.
Then they said good-night to the old man, who, plainly delighted at the thought that he had been of some service to them, and at this proof of his sharpness, of which he was always boasting, rose and hobbled into his house.
"He's really a wonderful old man," said Dick.
"He certainly is," agreed Jack. "His memory seems to be as good as ever, and he's awfully active, too. He's got rheumatism, but he can see and hear as well as he ever could, my father says."