e husband made a study
of the question, having been fined five shillin' and costs, the year
before he married me, just for withdrawing a dozen children from school
to pick his apples for him. As luck would have it, one of them fell off
a tree and broke his leg, and that gave the Board an excuse to take the
matter up. My husband argued it out with the Bench. 'The children like
it,' he said, 'for it keeps 'em out of doors, and provides 'em with
healthy exercise. If Education sets a boy against climbing for apples,
why then,' says he, speaking up boldly, 'with your Worships' leave,
Education must be something clean against Nature, as I always thought it
was. And the parents like it, for the coppers it brings in. And the
farmer gets his apples saved. If that's so,' says he, 'here's a
transaction that benefits everybody concerned, instead of which the
Board goes out of its way to harass me for it.' The chairman, Sir
Felix, owned he was right, too. 'Bosenna,' says he, 'I can't answer you
if I would. Nothing grieves me more, sitting here, than having to
administer the law as I find it. But, as things are, I can't let you
off with less.'"

This anecdote, and the close arguments used by Mr Bosenna, plunged Cai
in thought; and for the remainder of the meal he sat abstracted, joining
by fits and starts in the conversation, now and then raising his eyes to
a portrait of the deceased farmer, an enlarged and highly-tinted
photograph, which gazed down on him from the opposite wall. The gaze
was obstinate, brow-beating, as though it challenged Cai to find a flaw
in the defence: and Cai, although dimly aware of a fallacy somewhere,
could not meet the challenge. He lowered his eyes again to his plate.
He found himself wondering if, in any future circumstances, Mrs Bosenna
would consent to hang the portrait in another apartment. . . .

Into so deep an abstraction it cast him, indeed, that when Mrs Bosenna
arose to leave them to their wine and tobacco, he scrambled to his feet
a good three seconds too late. . . . 'Bias (usually lethargic in his
movements) was already at the door, holding it open for her.

What was worse--'Bias having closed the door upon her, returned to his
seat with a slight but insufferable air of patronage, and--passed the
decanter of wine to him!

"You'll find it pretty good," said 'Bias, dropping into his chair and
heavily crossing his legs.

Cai swallowed down a sudden tide of rage. "After you!"