Page:The little blue devil (IA littlebluedevil00mackiala).pdf/118

Indian Proverb.

When he was paid off, Tony looked round for something to do, in no hurry, for, he thanked his gods, he had some money this time. Plenty of money, it seemed to him.

One day in Kensington Gardens he ran against one of the wayside friends whom he now received gladly but without astonishment. This was a man named Waterhouse, a slight, dark person with hungry eyes and a reserved, sensitive mouth. He and Tony struck up their acquaintance over a dropped letter (one of Alison’s) and got on quickly, the more so that Waterhouse was down on his luck and more reckless than was customary with him. He was a Cambridge man of about twenty-eight, and fatally brilliant; at that moment he was decidedly worse off than Tony. His physique was not adapted for digging, as he said, and———

However, he gave a valuable suggestion: had Tony ever thought of going into a motor-works? As he seemed to have a bent for machinery he might be taken on somewhere, there were openings—if one were lucky. Personally he was no good at that kind of thing.

Tony caught at the idea; he would certainly try. “And I am lucky,” he said seriously. “At least, I’m on a streak of luck just now and I haven’t used it up yet.”