"He would n't laugh loud at Punch, for fear of an action," she replied.
"He never laughs out till he gets to bed, and has locked the door; and
when he does he says 'Hush!' to me. Tinman is n't bailiff again just
yet, and where he has his bailiff's best Court suit from, you may ask.
He exercises in it off and on all the week, at night, and sometimes in
the middle of the day."

Herbert rallied her for her gossip's credulity.

"It's truth," she declared. "I have it from the maid of the house,
little Jane, whom he pays four pound a year for all the work of the
house: a clever little thing with her hands and her head she is; and can
read and write beautiful; and she's a mind to leave 'em if they don't
advance her. She knocked and went in while he was full blaze, and bowing
his poll to his glass. And now he turns the key, and a child might know
he was at it."

"He can't be such a donkey!"

"And he's been seen at the window on the seaside. 'Who's your Admiral
staying at the house on the beach?' men have inquired as they come
ashore. My husband has heard it. Tinman's got it on his brain. He
might be cured by marriage to a sound-headed woman, but he 'll soon be
wanting to walk about in silk legs if he stops a bachelor. They tell me
his old mother here had a dress value twenty pound; and pomp's inherited.
Save as he may, there's his leak."

Herbert's contempt for Tinman was intense; it was that of the young and
ignorant who live in their imaginations like spendthrifts, unaware of the