“Yes, sir. Didn’t me an’ Dick Davies watch for it all chapel-time?”
“But why?—for that car in particular?”
“The gentleman bust his tire, an’ we watched him mendin’ it, an’ he set us a sum, an’ promised us a bob each if we did it.”
“Meanwhile he went to Hereford and back?”
“I s’pose so, sir.”
Peter Vanrenen’s attention was held by that guarded answer, and, being an American, he was ever ready to absorb information, especially in matters appertaining to figures.
“What was the sum?” he said.
To his very keen annoyance he found that he could not determine straight off how long two men take to mow a field of grass, which one of them could cut in four days and the other in three. Indeed, he almost caught himself saying “three days and a half,” but stopped short of that folly.
“About a day and three-quarters,” he essayed, before the silence grew irksome.