But I soon showed him I was not so mazed as he thought. He was tired of doing nothing. He wanted a change. Very well then; here was this little house right at the top of Edam Common, with the railway station opposite, and everybody's business taking him that way two or three times a day. What Edam wanted was a confectioner's shop. His wife was dying to have one. He would look a fine figure of a man in a white overall and cap! Hugh John had said it!
He whistled softly, and his little, deep-set eyes twinkled.
"I might ha' known," he said, "when I saw that long-legged brother of yours looking at me as if to calculate what I was good for. He's the fellow to make plans. Now the other——"
Here he laughed as he remembered Sir Toady Lion.
"More like me when I was his age!" he said. "But about the pastry-cook foolishness. What put that into his head?"
"It isn't foolishness," I answered, "and nobody that I know of ever puts anything into Hugh John's head!"
"He certainly is a wonder!" ("Corker" was what he said.)
Then I explained. One side of the villa was certainly expressly designed for a shop, the drawing-room and back drawing-room having side connections with the kitchen, only needed to be fitted with shelves and counters. The other side of the house and all above stairs might remain intact.
To my surprise Mr. Donnan never said a word concerning his position, his political aspirations, his illuminations, and disporting of the green harp of Ireland.