“That’s tall talk.”

“Not an inch taller than the truth.”

Mr. Bolt studied the drawings, and, from obstreperous, became quite quiet and absorbed.  Presently he asked Henry to change places with him; and, on this being complied with, he asked the meek woman to read him Henry’s figures, slowly.  She stared, but complied.  Mr. Bolt pondered the figures, and examined the drawings again.  He then put a number of questions to Henry, some of them very shrewd; and, at last, got so interested in the affair that he would talk of nothing else.

As the train slackened for Birmingham, he said to Henry, “I’m no great scholar; I like to see things in the body.  On we go to Hillsborough.”

“But I want to talk to a capitalist or two at Birmingham.”

“That is not fair; I’ve got the refusal.”

“The deuce you have!”

“Yes, I’ve gone into it with you; and the others wouldn’t listen.  Said so yourself.”

“Well, but, Mr. Bolt, are you really in earnest?  Surely this is quite out of your line?”

“How can it be out of my line if it pays?  I’ve bought and sold sheep, and wool, and land, and water, and houses, and tents, and old clothes, and coffee, and tobacco, and cabs.  And swopped—­my eye, how I have swopped!  I’ve swopped a housemaid under articles for a pew in the church, and a milch cow for a whale that wasn’t even killed yet; I paid for the chance.  I’m at all in the ring, and devilish bad to beat.  Here goes—­high, low, Jack, and the game.”

“Did you ever deal in small beer?” asked Henry, satirically.

“No,” said Bolt, innocently.  “But I would in a minute if I saw clear to the nimble shilling.  Well, will you come on to Hillsborough and settle this?  I’ve got the refusal for twenty-four hours, I consider.”

“Oh, if you think so, I will go on to Hillsborough.  But you said you were going to see your parents, after twenty years’ absence and silence.”

“So I am; but they can keep; what signifies a day or two more after twenty years?” He added, rather severely, as one whose superior age entitled him to play the monitor, “Young man, I never make a toil of a pleasure.”

“No more do I. But how does that apply to visiting your parents?”

“If I was to neglect business to gratify my feelings, I should be grizzling all the time; and wouldn’t that be making a toil of a pleasure?”

Henry could only grin in reply to this beautiful piece of reasoning; and that same afternoon the pair were in Hillsborough, and Mr. Bolt, under Henry’s guidance, inspected the grinding of heavy saws, both long and circular.  He noted, at Henry’s request, the heavy, dirty labor.  He then mounted to the studio, and there Henry lectured on his models, and showed them working.  Bolt took it all in, his eye flashed, and then he put on, for the first time, the coldness of the practiced dealer.  “It would take a good deal of money to work this properly,” said he, shaking his head.