“Aunt doesn’t take to it, boy,” said the doctor.
“No, uncle, and I had worked it out so thoroughly on paper,” cried Vane. “I’m sure it would have been a great success. You see you couldn’t do it anywhere, but you could here, because our greenhouse is all against the kitchen wall. You know how well that rose grows because it feels the heat from the fireplace through the bricks?”
“Got your plans—sketches—papers?” said the doctor.
“Yes, uncle,” cried the boy, eagerly, taking some sheets of note-paper from his breast. “You can see it all here. This is where the pipe would come out of the top of the boiler, and run all round three sides of the house, and go back again and into the boiler, down at the bottom.”
“And would that be enough to heat the greenhouse?”
“Plenty, uncle. I’ve worked it all out, and got a circular from London, and I can tell you exactly all it will cost—except the bricklayers’ work, and that can’t be much.”
“Can’t it?” cried the doctor, laughing. “Let me tell you it just can be a very great deal. I know it of old. There’s a game some people are very fond of playing at, Vane. It’s called bricks and mortar. Don’t you ever play at it much; it costs a good deal of money.”
“Oh, but this couldn’t cost above a pound or two.”
“Humph! No. Not so much as building a new flue, of course. But, look here: how about cold, frosty nights? The kitchen-fire goes out when Martha is off to bed.”
“It does now, uncle,” said the lad; “but it mustn’t when we want to heat the hot-water pipes.”