Mr. Hennesy and John Thomas, seated on a little hillock of dirt, were eating their dinner from a bountifully filled dinner pail, when a noontide visitor strode in upon them. The horses looked mildly up from their improvised feed boxes upon Theodore, who, reckless of the polished shoes and blue serge suit, seated himself upon another hillock in their midst.
"Mr. Hennesy," he said, coming straight to the point, "have you hired a man yet, to drive that new team you've bought?"
"Well," said Mr. Hennesy warily, and confining his gaze to a generous crescent his teeth had described in a quarter of an apple pie, "there's a red-headed man that's been afther the job, an' there's another that's as bald as an acorn----"
"If you'll give it to me," broke in Theodore, "I'll do my best to please you, and I'll work cheaper than a man. I have handled horses before. Try me for a week, Mr. Hennesy, and if I don't give satisfaction you needn't pay me a cent, and there will be no hard feeling."
Mr. Hennesy's first shock of surprise expanded slowly into a grin. John Thomas's eyes were like saucers.
"Why-ee--" gurgled Mr. Hennesy, "ye'd burn the shkin all off av yer nose, an' tan yer neck, an' blishter yer han's so yer own mother wouldn't be afther knowin' ye. Ye couldn't niver----"
"Come now, Mr. Hennesy," said Theodore, rising abruptly, "if I look like a fool, I assure you I'm not one. Will you give me the chance?"
Mr. Hennesy's grin vanished, and his chin squared.
"Thot I will!" he said, extending his hand cordially. "Ye can go to work in the mornin'. But moind me,--ye'll do yer full dhuty, or ye'll git fired!"
Theodore was gone, as suddenly as he had come, and John Thomas still sat, the picture of helpless surprise.
"Well--I'll--be blowed!" he ejaculated, at last. "I wouldn't have thought it of him. He looked too good to spoil his hands. Somethin' must have gone wrong at the drug store."
"Which same ye'll not be mintionin' to him, John Thomas," said Mr. Hennesy, with the true instincts of a gentleman.
"As if I would!" returned John Thomas scornfully.
Dinner was over, and Miss Billy was out weeding the pansy bed when her brother reached home. The long walk from the outskirts of the town where Mr. Hennesy was working, and the noontide heat of the day, had failed to bring the colour back to his pale face. He seemed to have grown taller, and older, in a single morning. Miss Billy, looking up from her flowers, instantly read the trouble in his face, and sprang to her feet.