went back to tea. "It's worth it. Oh, it's worth it."

The repairing and moving into Friars Pardon was business of the
most varied and searching, but all done English fashion, without
friction. Time and money alone were asked. The rest lay in the
hands of beneficent advisers from London, or spirits, male and
female, called up by Mr. and Mrs. Cloke from the wastes of the
farms. In the centre stood George and Sophie, a little aghast,
their interests reaching out on every side.

"I ain't sayin' anything against Londoners," said Cloke,
self-appointed clerk of the outer works, consulting engineer,
head of the immigration bureau, and superintendent of woods and
forests; "but your own people won't go about to make more than a
fair profit out of you."

"How is one to know?" said George.

"Five years from now, or so on, maybe, you'll be lookin' over
your first year's accounts, and, knowin' what you'll know then,
you'll say: 'Well, Billy Beartup'--or Old Cloke as it might
be--'did me proper when I was new.' No man likes to have that
sort of thing laid up against him."

"I think I see," said George. "But five years is a long time to
look ahead."

"I doubt if that oak Billy Beartup throwed in Reuben's Ghyll will
be fit for her drawin-room floor in less than seven," Cloke
drawled.