66

now

— wouldn't it? that you've seen Mrs Bowldler, if she went round an' had a look at the house?"

"Which I trust," said Mrs Bowldler, "it would not be required of me to sleep in a nattic. It's not that I'm peculiar, but as I said to my sister Martha at breakfast only this morning, 'Attics I was never accustomed to, and if 'tis to be attics at my age, with the roof on your head all the time and not a wink in consequence, Martha,' I said, 'you wouldn't ask it of me, no, not to oblige all the retired gentlemen in Christendom.'”

"You'd better trot along upstairs, then, an' make sure,' said Fancy. As soon as the woman was gone she jerked a nod towards the door. "Now we can talk. I didn't want her to know, but Pam comes from the Work'ouse. His father was mate of a vessel an' drowned at sea, and his mother couldn't manage alone."

"What vessel?" asked Captain Cai. Both skippers were regarding the boy with interest.

"The Tartar Girl- one of Mr Rogers's-with coal from South Shields, but a Troy crew. It happened five years ago; an' last night when you said you wanted a boy it came into my head that one of the Burts would be just about the age. [Pam's other name is Burt, but I didn't tell it just now, not wanting Mrs Bowldler to guess who he was.] So this morning I got Mr Rogers to let me

'ouse-an' here he is."

"Do they dress 'em like that in there?" asked Captain Cai.

"Better fit they did!" said the girl angrily. "They sent him over in a clean corduroy suit with 'Work'ouse' written all over it: and a nice job I had to rig him up so's Mrs Bowldler shouldn' guess."

At this moment a piercing scream interrupted Fancy's explanation. It came from one of the front rooms, and was followed by another shorter - the voice unmistakably Mrs Bowldler's.

scream

it's pullin' her to leeward. She'd set two p'ints nigher with it down."

"The fella can't make up his mind about it, either: keeps it shakin' half the time."

The two friends sat in 'Bias's summerhouse, the scent of their tobacco mingling, while they discoursed, with the fragrance of late roses, nicotianas, lemon verbenas. "Discoursed," did I say? Well, let the word pass: for their talk was discursive enough. But when at intervals one or the other opened his mouth, his utterance, though it took the form of a comment upon men and affairs, was in truth but the breathing of a deep inward content. On the table between them Captain Cai's musical-box tinkled the waltz from "Faust."

They had become houseoccupiers early in May, and at first with a few bare sticks of furniture a-piece. But by dint of steady attendance at the midsummer auctions they had since done wonders. Captain Cai had acquired, among other things, a refrigerator, a linenpress, and a set of 'The Encyclopædia Britannica' (edition of 1881); Captain 'Bias a poultry run (in sections) and a framed engraving of "The Waterloo Banquet," of which, strange to say, he found himself possessor directly through his indifference to art; for, oppressed by the heat of the saleroom, he had yielded to brief slumber (on his legs) while the pictures were being disposed of, and awaking at the sound of his own name was aware that he had secured

this bargain by an untimely and unpremeditated nod.

Such small accidents, however, are a part of the fun of house-furnishing. On the whole our two friends had bought judiciously, and now looking around them, could say that their experiment had hitherto prospered; that, so far, the world was kind.

Especially were they fortunate (thanks to Fancy Tabb) precisely where bachelor householders are apt to miss good fortune in the matter of domestic service. The boy Palmerston, to be sure, suffered from a trick-acquired (Fancy assured them) under workhouse treatment and eradicable by time and gentle handling-of bursting into tears upon small provocation or none. But Mrs Bowldler was a treasure. this there could be no manner of doubt; and in nothing so patently as in relation with the boy Palmerston did the gold in Mrs Bowldler's nature the refined gold - reveal itself.

Of

It was suspected that she had once been a kitchen-maid in the West End of London: but a discreet veil hung over this past, and she never lifted it save by whatever of confession might be read into the words, "When we were in residence in Eaton Square," with which she preluded all reminiscences (and they were frequent) of the great metropolis. Her true test as a good woman she passed when-although she must have known the truth, being a confirmed innocent gossip-she chose to

"The past is often enveloped. In the best families it is notoriously so. We know what we are, an' may speckilate on what we was; but what we're to be, who can possibly tell? It might give us the creeps."

She said again: "Every man carries a button in his knapsack, by which he may rise sooner or later to higher things, It was said by a Frenchman, and a politer nation you would not find."

Again: "Blood will tell, always supposin' you 'ave it, and will excuse the expression.”

Thus did Mrs Bowldler "turn her necessity to glorious gain," colouring and enlarging her sphere of service under the prismatic lens of romance. In her conversation either cottage became a "residence," and its small garden "the grounds," thus:

66

Palmerston, inform Captain Hunken that dinner is served. You will find him in the grounds."

Or, "Where's that boy?" Captain Cai might ask.

66 'Palmerston, sir? He is at present in the adjacent, cleaning the knives and forks."

She had indeed set this high standard of expression in the very act of taking service; when, being asked what wages she demanded, she answered, "If acceptable to you, sir, I would intimate eighteen guineas -and my viands."

"That's two shilling short o'

"I thank you, sir"-Mrs Bowldler made obeisance"but I have an attachment to guineas."

She identified herself with her employers by speaking of them in the first person plural: "No, we do not dress for dinner. Our rule is to dine in the middle of the day, as more agreeable to health." [A sigh.] "Sometimes I wish we could persuade ourselves that vegetables look better on the side-table."

Such was Mrs Bowldler: and her housekeeping, no less vigilant than romantic, protected our two friends from a thousand small domestic cares.

"Committee - meeting, tonight?" asked 'Bias.

"Eight o'clock: to settle up details-mark-boats, handicap, and the like. . . . It's a wonder to me," said Cai reflectively, "how this regatta has run on, year after year. With Bussa for secretary, if you can understand such madness."

"They'll be runnin' you for the next Parish Council, sure as fate."

Cai ignored this. "There's the fireworks, too. Nobody chosen yet to superintend 'em, an' who's to do it I don't know, unless I take over that little job in addition."

"I thought the firm always sent a couple o' hands to fix an' let 'em off."

"So it does. They arrived a couple of hours ago-both drunk as Chloe."

"Plenty o' time to sleep it

"But they're still on the drink. Likely as not we shall find 'em to-morrow in Highway lock-up, which is four miles from here. . . . It happened once before," said Cai with a face of gloom, "and Bussa did the whole display by himself."

"Good Lord! How did it go off?"

"He can't remember, except that it did go off. He was drunk, too drunk o' purpose: for, as he says very reas'nably, 'twas the only way he could find the courage. The fellow isn' without public spirit, if he'd only apply it the right way. Toy tells me that he, for his part, saw it from his bedroom window-the Town Quay wasn't safe, wi' the rocketsticks fairly rainin'-an' the show wasn' a bad show, if you looked at it horizontal; but the gentry on the yachts derived next to no enjoyment from it, bein' occupied in gettin' up their anchors."

Before 'Bias could comment on this, a footstep-light, yet audible between the tinkling notes of the musical - boxdrew the gaze of the pair to a small window on the right, outside of which lay the gravelled approach to their bower.

away, and so I took French leave. Now don't tell me that I'm an intruder! It is only for a few minutes; and-strictly speaking, you know-the lease says I may enter at any reasonable time. Is this a reasonable time?"

They assured her, but still awkwardly, that she was welcome at any time. Captain Cai found her a chair.

"So this," she said, looking around, "is where you sit together and talk disparagingly of our

sex. At least, that's what Dinah assures me, though I don't see how she can possibly know."

"Ma'am !" said Cai, "we were talkin', this very moment, o' fireworks: nothing more an' nothing less."

"Well, and you couldn't have been talking of anything more to the point," said Mrs Bosenna; "for, as it happens, it's fireworks that brought me here."

'Bias looked vaguely skyward, while "You don't tell me, ma'am, those fellows are makin' trouble down in the town?" cried Cai.

"Eh? I don't understand. . . . Oh, no," she laughed when he explained his alarm, "I am afraid my errand is much more selfish. You see, I positively dote on fireworks."

She paused. "Well," said 'Bias, "that's womanlike."

"Hallo!" said Cai. "How do you know what's womanlike?"

"I am afraid it is womanlike," confessed Mrs Bosenna