“You are, are you? And how long have you been mending motor-cars?”
“Not so very long. I help feyther now and again; motor-cars are always breaking down, and he has mended a rare lot of ’em.”
“Ah! And how much would he have charged for mending this one?”
“About two shillings, I reckon; it wasn’t a very hard job.”
“Oh! Well, here’s two shillings for you. Don’t spend it all on sweets.”
“Not me,” said the boy with a grin. “I’m saving up, I am.”
“Indeed! What for?”
“Why, for heaps of things. I want a model of a four-coupled bogie tank engine, and a model of a turbine steamer, and a motor bicycle——”
“Steady, youngster. That’s rather a large order, isn’t it? You’ve got a fancy for mechanics, eh!”
“Mechanics! Not me! That’s what they teach in the seventh standard. I like engines, I do—machines that’ll go. I’m going to be an engineer some day—if I can; feyther says it costs a mint of money, and he hasn’t got much, and he says he don’t hold with flying too high, and I’d much better be a smith. But there’s nothing new in smith’s work: you just go on shoeing horses, and sticking fellies on wheels, and mending prams and motor-cars now and then. I want to do something new, I do.”