xt.
. . . Well, one day Mr Philp here came into the shop wearin' a dark blue
tie, and says I, 'You're Oxford.' 'Am I?' says he--'It's the first I've
heard tell of it.' 'You're Oxford,' says I: 'and I'm Cambridge, for
half-a-crown.' Odd enough, Cambridge won that year by eight lengths."

"I wonder you have the face to tell this story," put in Mr Philp.

The barber grinned. "Well, I thought as we'd both settled 'pon our
fancy, in a neighbourly way. But be dashed if, soon after the followin'
Christmas, Mr Philp didn't send his tie to the wash, and it came back
any blue you pleased. 'Make it one or t'other--_I_ don't care,' said I:
and he weighed the choice so long, bein' a cautious man, that we missed
to make up any bet at all. If you'll believe me, that year they rowed a
dead heat."

"Very curious," commented Cai.

"But that isn' the end," continued the barber. "Next year he'd washed
his necktie again, and that 'twas Cambridge he couldn' dispute. So we
put on another half-crown, and Oxford won by two lengths. . . . 'Twas a
pity I could never induce him to bet again, for his tie went on getting
Cambridger and Cambridger, while Oxford won four years out o' five."

"If you believe there was any honesty in it!" said Mr Philp.
"'Twas only my suspicious natur' as saved me."

The whole town, indeed, was watching the rivals, and with an open
interest very difficult to resent. Nay, since it was impossible to tell
every second man in the street to mind his own business, Cai and 'Bias
accepted the publicity perforce and turned their resentment upon one
another.

They continued, of course, to live apart, and Mrs Bowldler soon learned
to avoid playing the intermediary, even to the extent of suggesting
(say) some concerted action over the coal supplies. After the first
fortnight no messages passed between them--

"They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs that had been rent asunder."

If they met, in shop or roadway, they nodded, but exchanged no other
greeting. They never met at Rilla Farm. How it was agreed I know not,
though Mrs Bosenna must have contrived it somehow; but they now
prosecuted their wooing openly on alternate days. Sunday she reserved
for what Sunday ought to be--a day of rest.

"The artfulness!" exclaimed Mrs Bowldler on making discovery of this
arrangement. "But the men are no match for us, my dear"--this to
Fancy--"an' the oftener they marry us the cleverer they leave