“‘Tarn’t no good, Sammy, lad,” some one was saying, “you a-makin’ after Nancy Webb—­she’ll ha’ nowt to do with ’ee.”

“Don’ like ’em so thread-papery,” added another.  “No, Sammy, you aren’t the lad for she.  I see her——­”

“What about Nancy Webb?” asked Kentish, pushing open the door.  “Sammy’s all right, any way.  You keep fit, my lad, an’ go on improving, and some day you’ll have as good a house as me.  Never mind the lasses.  Had his glass o’ beer, has he?” This to Raggy Steggles, who, answering in the affirmative, viewed his charge as though he were a post, and the beer a recent coat of paint.

“Has two glasses of mild a day,” the landlord said to Hewitt.  “Never puts on flesh, so he can stand it.  Come out now.”  He nodded to Steggles, who rose and marched Sammy Crockett away for exercise.

* * * * *

On the following afternoon (it was Thursday), as Hewitt and Kentish chatted in the landlord’s own snuggery, Steggles burst into the room in a great state of agitation and spluttered out:  “He—­he’s bolted; gone away!”

“What?”

“Sammy—­gone!  Hooked it! I can’t find him.”

The landlord stared blankly at the trainer, who stood with a sweater dangling from his hand and stared blankly back.  “What d’ye mean?” Kentish said, at last.  “Don’t be a fool!  He’s in the place somewhere.  Find him!”

But this Steggles defied anybody to do.  He had looked already.  He had left Crockett at the cinder-path behind the trees in his running-gear, with the addition of the long overcoat and cap he used in going between the path and the house to guard against chill.  “I was goin’ to give him a bust or two with the pistol,” the trainer explained, “but, when we got over t’other side, ‘Raggy,’ ses he, ‘it’s blawin’ a bit chilly.  I think I’ll ha’ a sweater.  There’s one on my box, ain’t there?’ So in I coomes for the sweater, and it weren’t on his box, and, when I found it and got back—­he weren’t there.  They’d seen nowt o’ him in t’ house, and he weren’t nowhere.”

Hewitt and the landlord, now thoroughly startled, searched everywhere, but to no purpose.  “What should he go off the place for?” asked Kentish, in a sweat of apprehension. “’Tain’t chilly a bit—­it’s warm.  He didn’t want no sweater; never wore one before.  It was a piece of kid to be able to clear out.  Nice thing, this is.  I stand to win two years’ takings over him.  Here—­you’ll have to find him.”

“Ah, but how?” exclaimed the disconcerted trainer, dancing about distractedly.  “I’ve got all I could scrape on him myself.  Where can I look?”

Here was Hewitt’s opportunity.  He took Kentish aside and whispered.  What he said startled the landlord considerably.  “Yes, I’ll tell you all about that,” he said, “if that’s all you want.  It’s no good or harm to me whether I tell or no.  But can you find him?”

“That I can’t promise, of course.  But you know who I am now, and what I’m here for.  If you like to give me the information I want, I’ll go into the case for you, and, of course, I shan’t charge any fee.  I may have luck, you know, but I can’t promise, of course.”