“What is he doing?” I asked, anxious to hear something more definite of poor Jack.
“Oh, the same old game, on’y he goes at it quieter nor he used. Last Sunday that there bell-ringing regular blowed him out, the old covey.”
A light suddenly dawned upon me.
“Bell-ringing; old covey. That’s not the Jack Smith I mean!”
“What!” roared my companion, “you don’t mean him?”
“No, who?” cried I, utterly bewildered.
“Why, old Jack Smith, the sexton, what was eighty-two last Christmas! You wasn’t at school with him! Oh, I say; here, take the reins: I can’t drive straight no longer!” and he fairly collapsed into the bottom of the cart.
This little diversion, amusing as it was, did not have the effect of allaying my anxiety to hear something about my old schoolfellow.
My driver, however, although he knew plenty of Smiths in the town, knew no one answering to Jack’s description; and, now that Packworth was in sight, I began to feel rather foolish to have come so far on such a wild-goose chase.
Packworth is a large town with about 40,000 inhabitants; and when, having bidden farewell to the good-natured baker, I found myself in its crowded bustling streets, any chance of running against my old chum seemed very remote indeed.