Mr. Green's face lost some of its chubbiness. "When d'ye look
to marry the landlady?" was his next question.

The man stared. "Cod!" said he. "Marry the - Are ye daft?"

Mr. Green affected surprise. "I'm mistook, it seems. Ye
misled me by your pertness. Get me another nipperkin."

Meanwhile Mr. Caryll had taken his way above stairs to the
room set apart for him. He dined to his satisfaction, and
thereafter, his shapely, silk-clad legs thrown over a second
chair, his waistcoat all unbuttoned, for the day was of an
almost midsummer warmth - he sat mightily at his ease, a
decanter of sherry at his elbow, a pipe in one hand and a book
of Mr. Gay's poems in the other. But the ease went no further
than the body, as witnessed the circumstances that his pipe
was cold, the decanter tolerably full, and Mr. Gay's pleasant
rhymes and quaint conceits of fancy all unheeded. The light,
mercurial spirit which he had from nature and his unfortunate
mother, and which he had retained in spite of the stern
training he had received at his adoptive father's hands, was
heavy-fettered now.

The mild fatigue of his journey through the heat of the day
had led him to look forward to a voluptuous hour of indolence
following upon dinner, with pipe and book and glass. The hour
was come, the elements were there, but since he could not
abandon himself to their dominion the voluptuousness was
wanting. The task before him haunted him with anticipatory