it, and knocking the ashes from his pipe, went slowly up to bed.

He was so amiable next morning that Mr. Bodfish, who was trying to
explain to Mrs. Negget the difference between theft and kleptomania,
spoke before him freely. The ex-constable defined kleptomania as a sort
of amiable weakness found chiefly among the upper circles, and cited the
case of a lady of title whose love of diamonds, combined with great
hospitality, was a source of much embarrassment to her guests.

For the whole of that day Mr. Bodfish hung about in the neighbourhood of
the widow's cottage, but in vain, and it would be hard to say whether he
or Mr. Negget, who had been discreetly shadowing him, felt the
disappointment most. On the day following, however, the ex-constable
from a distant hedge saw a friend of the widow's enter the cottage, and
a little later both ladies emerged and walked up the road.

He watched them turn the corner, and then, with a cautious glance round,
which failed, however, to discover Mr. Negget, the ex-constable strolled
casually in the direction of the cottage, and approaching it from the
rear, turned the handle of the door and slipped in.

He searched the parlour hastily, and then, after a glance from the
window, ventured up stairs. And he was in the thick of his self-imposed
task when his graceless nephew by marriage, who had met Mrs. Driver and
referred pathetically to a raging thirst which he had hoped to have
quenched with some of her home-brewed, brought the ladies hastily back
again.

"I'll go round the back way," said the wily Negget as they approached the
cottage. "I just want to have a look at that pig of yours."