till preserved traces of
ancient dignity, albeit jostled by cottages which had climbed the slope
and encroached nearer and nearer as the Nanjulians under stress of
poverty had parted with parcel after parcel of their terraced garden.
Of the last generation--five sons and three daughters, not one of whom
had married--John Peter and his sister "Miss Susan" were now the only
survivors, and lived, each on a small annuity, under the old roof,
meeting only at dinner on Sundays, and for the rest of the week dwelling
apart in their separate halves of the roomy building, up and down the
wide staircase of which they had once raced as children at hide-and-seek
with six playmates.

John Peter was eccentric, as all these later Nanjulians had been: a
lean, stooping man, with a touch of breeding in his face, a weak mouth,
and a chin dotted with tufts of gray hair which looked as if they had
been affixed with gum and absent-mindedly. He was reputed to be a great
reader, and could quote the poetical works of Pope by the yard. He had
some skill with the pencil and the water-colour brush. He understood
and could teach the theory of navigation; dabbled in chess problems; and
had once constructed an astronomical timepiece. His not-too-clean hands
were habitually stained with acids: for he practised etching, too,
although his plates invariably went wrong. He had considerable skill in
engraving upon brass and copper, and was not above eking out his income
by inscribing coffin-plates. But the undertaker was shy of employing
him because he could never be hurried.

John Peter received Captain Cai in his workshop--a room ample enough for
a studio and lit by a large window that faced north, but darkened by
cobwebs, dirty, and incredibly littered with odds and ends of futile
apparatus. He put a watchmaker's glass to his eye and peered long into
the bowels of the musical box.

"The works are clogged with dust," he announced. "Fairly caked with oil
and dirt. No wonder it won't go."

"But it _does_ go," objected Captain Cai.

"You don't tell me! . . . Well, you'd best let me take out the works,
any way, and give them a bath of paraffin."

"Is it so serious as all that? . . . What I came about now, was to ask
you to make a brass plate for the lid--with an inscription."
Captain Cai pulled out a scrap of paper. "Something like this,
'Presented to Caius Hocken, Master of the _Hannah Hoo_, on the Occasion
of his Retirement. By his affec