He skirted its east bank, plunged into Great Shendon
Wood, and emerged near Great Shendon Station, on the line from Stafford
to Knype. He inquired for the next train in the tones of innocency, and
in half an hour was passing through Sneyd Station itself. In another
fifty minutes he was at home. The clock showed ten-fifteen. His mother's
cottage seemed amazingly small. He said that he had been detained in
Hanbridge on business, that he had had neither tea nor supper, and that
he was hungry. Next morning he could scarcely be sure that his visit to
Sneyd Hall was not a dream. In any event, it had been a complete
failure.
V
It was on this untriumphant morning that one of the tenants under his
control, calling at the cottage to pay some rent overdue, asked him when
the Universal Thrift Club was going to commence its operations. He had
talked of the enterprise to all his tenants, for it was precisely with
his tenants that he hoped to make a beginning. He had there a
_clientele_ ready to his hand, and as he was intimately acquainted
with the circumstances of each, he could judge between those who would
be reliable and those to whom he would be obliged to refuse membership.
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