people, that drew Peter to the place.

It was partly perhaps because The Bending Mule was built right out into the
sea, being surrounded on three sides by water. This was all twenty years
ago, and I believe that now the Inn has been turned into an Arts Club, and
there are tea-parties and weekly fashion papers where there had once been
those bloody fights and Mother Figgis sitting like some witch over the
fire; but it is no matter. Treliss is changed, of course, and so is the
world, and there are politeness and sentiment where once there were oaths
and ferocity, and there is much soap instead of grimy hands and unwashen
faces ... and the fishing is sadly on the decline, but there are good
drapers' shops in the town.

For Peter the charm of the place was that "he was out at sea." One could
hear quite distinctly the lap of the waves against the walls and on stormy
nights the water screamed and fought and raged outside and rolled in
thundering echoes along the shore. To-night everything was still, and the
snow was falling heavily, solemnly over the town.

The snow, and the black sea, and the lights that rose tier on tier like
crowds at a circus, could be seen through the uncurtained windows.

The snow and quiet of the world "out-along" made the lights and warmth of
the room the more comforting and exciting, and Sam Figgis had hung holly
about the walls and dangled a huge bunch of mistletoe from the middle beam
and poor Jane Clewer was always walking under it accidentally and waiting a
little, but nobody kissed her. These things Peter noticed; he also noticed
that Dicky the Idiot was allowed to be present as a very great favour
because it was Christmas Eve and snowing so hard, that the room was more
crowded than he had ever seen it, and that Mother Figgis, with her round