“Just match-boarding, the Sergeant says it is, does he?” asked Neddy, breaking a long silence, which indeed had lasted until they were across Putney Bridge and climbing the Hill.

“Yes, and rotten at that.  It oughtn’t to take two minutes; then there’ll be only the window.  Of course we must have a look round first.  Then, if the coast’s clear, I’ll nip in and shove something up against the door of the place while you’re following.  The Sergeant’s to stay on guard at the door of the house, so that we can’t be taken in the rear.  See?”

“Righto!”

“Then—­well, we’ve got to find the stuff, and when we’ve found it, you’ve got to carry it, Neddy.  Don’t mind if it’s a bit heavy, do you?”

“I don’t want to overstrain myself,” said Neddy jocularly, “but I’ll do my best with it, only hope it’s there!”

“It must be there.  Hasn’t got wings, has it?  At any rate not till you put it in your pocket, and go out for an evening with the ladies!”

Neddy paid this pleasantry the tribute of a laugh, but he had one more business question to ask: 

“Where are we to stow the car?  How far off?”

“The Sergeant has picked out a big clump of trees, a hundred yards from the cottage on the Sprotsfield side, and about thirty yards from the road.  Pretty clear going to it, bar the bracken—­she’ll do it easily.  There she’ll lie, snug as you like.  As we go by Sprotsfield, the car won’t have to pass the Cottage at all—­that’s an advantage—­and yet it’s not over far to carry the stuff.”

“Sounds all right,” said Neddy placidly, and with a yawn.  “Have a drop?”

“No, I won’t—­and I wish you wouldn’t, Neddy.  It makes you bad-tempered, and a man doesn’t want to be bad-tempered on these jobs.”

“Take the wheel a second while I have a drop,” said Neddy, just for all the world as if his friend had not spoken.  He unscrewed the top of a large flask and took a very considerable “drop.”  It was only after he had done this with great deliberation that he observed good-naturedly, “And you go to hell, Mike!  It’s dark, ain’t it?  That’s a bit of all right.”

He did not speak again till they were near Sprotsfield.  “This Beaumaroy—­queer name, ain’t it?—­he’s a big chap, ain’t he, Mike?”

“Pretty fair, but, Lord love you, a baby beside yourself.”

“Well, now, you told me something the Sergeant said about a man as was (Neddy, unlike his friend, occasionally tripped in his English) really big.”

“Oh, that’s Naylor—­Captain Naylor.  But he’s not at the cottage; we’re not likely to meet him, praise be!”

“Rather wish we were!  I want a little bit of exercise,” said Neddy.

“Well, I don’t know but what Beaumaroy might give you that.  The Sergeant’s got tales about him at the war.”

“Oh, blast these soldiers—­they ain’t no good.”  In what he himself regarded as his spare hours, that is to say, the daytime hours wherein the ordinary man labors, Neddy was a highly skilled craftsman, whose only failing was a tendency to be late in the morning and to fall ill about the festive seasons of the year.  He made lenses, and, in spite of the failing, his work had been deemed to be of national importance, as indeed it was.  But that did not excuse his prejudice against soldiers.