address for
these eight years. But of course you are aware--"

"Aware, sir? I am aware of nothing. Least of all am I aware of any
reason why I should not call upon her. Hoe Terrace, did you say?
What number?"

"Thirty-four. You will bear in mind that I have not advised--"

"Oh, dear me, no; you have advised nothing. Good-morning, Mr. Cudmore!"
And Parson Jack, fuming, found himself in the street.

He filled and lit his pipe, to soothe his humour. But he forgot that
the clergy of Plymouth do not as a rule smoke clay pipes in the public
streets, and the attention he excited puzzled and angered him yet
further. He set it down to his threadbare coat and rustic boots.
It was in no sweet mood that he strode up Hoe Terrace, eyeing the
numbers above the doors, and halted at length to knock out his pipe
before a house with an unpainted area-railing, to which a small boy in
ragged knickerbockers was engaged in attaching with a string the tail of
a protesting puppy.

"I shouldn't do that if I were you," said Parson Jack, rapping the bowl
of his pipe against his boot-heel.

"I don't suppose you would," retorted the small boy. "But then there's
some parsons wouldn't smoke a clay."

Before Parson Jack could discover a repartee the door opened and a young
man with a weak chin and bright yellow boots came out laughing, followed
by a good-looking girl, who turned on the step to close the door behind
her. Although in black, she was outrageously over-dressed. An enormous
black feather nodded above her "picture" hat, and with one hand she held
up her skirt, revealing a white embroidered petticoat deplorably stained
with mud.

In the act of turning she caught sight of the small boy, and at once
began to rate him.

"Haven't I told you fifty times to let that dog alone? Go indoors this
instant and get yourself cleaned! For my part, I don't know what
Tillotson means, letting you out of school so early."

"I haven't been to school," the boy announced, catching at a dirty sheet
of newspaper which fluttered against the railing, and nonchalantly
folding it into a cocked hat.

"Your mumps have been all right for a week. There's not the slightest
risk of infection, and you know it. You don't tell me you've persuaded
mother--"

"I haven't said a word to her," the boy interrupted. "It isn't mumps;
it's these breeches. If you can't find time to darn 'em, I'm not going
to school till somebody can."

The young man titte