you baint. . . . I wonder if that Hocken was any relation--S-sh! now!
Talk of the devil!"


Captain Cai and Fancy had spent a good hour-and-a-half in overhauling
the two cottages. Their accommodation was narrow enough, but Captain
Cai, after half a lifetime on shipboard, found them little short of
palatial. The child could scarcely drag him away from the tiny
bath-rooms with their hot and cold water taps.

"Lord," said he, gazing down into the newly painted bath in No.1.
"To think of 'Bias in the likes o' this!"

"You may, if you care to," said Fancy.

"'Tis a knack of mine," he apologised. "We'll suppose him safely out of
it, an' what happens next? Why, he'll step across to the linen-cupboard
here, wi' the hot pipes behind it, an' there's a clean shirt dried an'
warmed to his skin. He gets into that--the day bein' Sunday, as we'll
suppose--an' finishes his dressin', danderin' forth an' back from one
room to t'other; breakfast gettin' ready downstairs an' no hurry for
it--all his time his own, clean away to sundown. Up above the lower
window-sash here with the Prodigal Son in stained glass, and very
thoughtful of the architect, too--"

"It isn't stained glass," the child corrected; "it's what they call a
transparency."

"I hope you're mistaken. . . . I must try it from the outside before I
let 'Bias undress here. As I was sayin', through the upper pane he'll