intention of going South, and stopped off here for no particular reason.
Perhaps I should have said that I have no family. My father died
something over a year ago. Oddly enough, in front of the station here
I met an Irish woman, once a servant in my father's house. She was
overjoyed to see me, and poured out her troubles. Her son, who ran a
candy wagon, had been taken ill with fever, and his employers would not
promise to keep the place for him, and altogether she was in hard lines,
this boy being the main support of a large family. So now you see how
the idea occurred to me. To amuse myself and keep the boy's place. And
having no family or friends to be disgraced----"

"No one has intimated there was any disgrace about it," Miss Bentley
interrupted. "At worst it can be called eccentric. It was also very,
very kind."

"Oh, now, Miss Bentley, thank you, but I can't let you overrate that.
Any help I have given was merely by the way. You must remember I was
in need of some occupation, and I assure you it has been very much of
a lark."

"Yes?" said Miss Bentley. "Then no doubt before long you will be writing
'The Impressions of a Candy Man,' or 'Life as Seen from a Candy Wagon.'
It will be new."

"Thanks for the suggestion, I'll consider it. But for the chance that
made me a Candy Man I should have missed a great deal--for one thing, a
realisation of the opportunity that awaits the Fairy Godmother Society."

"But Tim will soon be about again," said Margaret Elizabeth.