your folly, if it amuses you."

"Then, again, you've taken a house."

"So Rogers tells me. I don't even know the rent, at this moment."

"Twenty-five pound p'r annum," put in Mr Philp. Captain Cai--released
just then from his wrapper--turned and stared at him.

"I had it from the Postmistress," Mr Philp's tone was matter-of-fact,
his gaze unabashed. "Bein' paralytic, Rogers did your business with the
widow by letter; he keeps a type-writin' machine an' pays Tabb's girl
three shillin' a-week to work it. The paper's thin, as I've had a mind
to warn 'er more than once."

"'Twould be a Christian act," suggested Mr Toy. "If there's truth in
half what folks say, some of old Johnny Rogers' correspondence 'd make
pretty readin' for the devil."

"But look here," interposed Captain Cai, "what's this about doin'
business with a widow? _Whose_ widow?"

"Why, your landlady, to be sure--the Widow Bosenna, up to Rilla Farm."

"No--stop a minute--take that blessed latherin'-brush out o' my mouth!
You don't tell me old Bosenna's dead, up there?"

"It didn' altogether surprise most of us when it happened," said the
barber philosophically. "A man risin' sixty-five, with _his_ habits!
. . . But it all came about by the County Council's widenin' the road
up at Four Turnin's. . . . You see, o' late years th' old man 'd ride
home on Saturdays so full he _had_ to drop off somewhere 'pon the road;
an' his mare gettin' to find this out, as dumb animals do, had picked up
a comfortable way of canterin' hard by Four Turnin's and stoppin' short,
slap in the middle of her stride, close by th' hedge, so 's her master
'd roll over it into the plantation there, where the ditch is full of
oak-leaves. There he'd lie, peaceful as a suckin' child; and there,
every Sabbath mornin' in the small hours, one o' the farm hands 'd be
sent to gather 'em in wi' the new-laid eggs. So it went on till one day
the County Council, busy as usual, takes a notion to widen th' road just
there; an' not only pulls down th' hedge, but piles up a great heap o'
stones, ready to build a new one. Whereby either the mare hadn' noticed
the improvement or it escaped her memory. Anyway--the night bein'
dark--she shoots old Bosenna neck-an'-crop 'pon the stones. It caused a
lot o' feelin' at the time, an' the coroner's jury spoke their minds
pretty free about it. They brought it in that he'd met his death by the
visitation o' God brought about by a mistake o' th