his hands in his pockets and
rattling his money at it, apostrophised it with a short laugh.

'Allong and marshong, indeed. It would be more creditable to you,
I think, to let other people allong and marshong about their lawful
business, instead of shutting 'em up in quarantine!'

'Tiresome enough,' said the other. 'But we shall be out to-day.'

'Out to-day!' repeated the first. 'It's almost an aggravation of the
enormity, that we shall be out to-day. Out! What have we ever been in
for?'

'For no very strong reason, I must say. But as we come from the East,
and as the East is the country of the plague--'

'The plague!' repeated the other. 'That's my grievance. I have had the
plague continually, ever since I have been here. I am like a sane man
shut up in a madhouse; I can't stand the suspicion of the thing. I came
here as well as ever I was in my life; but to suspect me of the plague
is to give me the plague. And I have had it--and I have got it.'

'You bear it very well, Mr Meagles,' said the second speaker, smiling.

'No. If you knew the real state of the case, that's the last observation
you would think of making. I have been waking up night after night, and
saying, NOW I have got it, NOW it has developed itself, NOW I am in for
it, NOW these fellows are making out their case for their precautions.
Why, I'd as soon have a spit put through me, and be stuck upon a card in
a collection of beetles, as lead the life I have been leading here.'

'Well, Mr Meagles, say no more about it now it's over,' urged a cheerful
feminine voice.

'Over!' repeated Mr Meagles, who appeared (though without any
ill-nature) to be in that peculiar state of mind in which the last word
spoken by anybody else is a new injury. 'Over! and why should I say no
more about it because it's over?'

It was Mrs Meagles who had spoken to Mr Meagles; and Mrs Meagles was,
like Mr Meagles, comely and healthy, with a pleasant English face which
had been looking at homely things for five-and-fifty years or more, and
shone with a bright reflection of them.

'There! Never mind, Father, never mind!' said Mrs Meagles. 'For goodness
sake content yourself with Pet.'

'With Pet?' repeated Mr Meagles in his injured vein. Pet, however,
being close behind him, touched him on the shoulder, and Mr Meagles
immediately forgave Marseilles from the bottom of his heart.

Pet was about twenty. A fair girl with rich brown hair hanging free in
natural ringlets. A lo