e smell of roasted sucking-pig dissipated this transient cloud upon
his spirits. Mrs Bosenna (who had discarded her apron, and looked
mighty genteel with a gold locket dependent from her throat) avowed,
appealing to his sympathy, that it mightn't be sentimental, but she, for
her part, adored the savour of crackling.

"And as for Robert--my late husband--he doted on it."

Captain Cai came within an ace of saying fatuously it was a pity the
late Mr Bosenna couldn't be present to partake of this; but checked
himself.

"To think that you should have met him! Well, it's a small world."

"There's a lot of folks attend Summercourt Fair--or used to," said
Captain Cai, and added that the world was not so noticeably small, if
you tried sailing up and down it a bit.

"Ah!" exclaimed Mrs Bosenna, dropping knife and fork and clasping her
hands. "Yes, to be sure, the vastness of it--the great distances! . . .
And so you met my late husband in a boxing tent? Sport of all kinds
appealed to him. But isn't boxing a-er--more or less degrading
exhibition?"

"Nothing of the sort, ma'am. I never went in for it myself--worse luck;
never had the time. But my friend 'Bias, now! He's past his prime, o'
course; but if only you'd seen him strip--in the old time--"

"Er--you're surely not referring to your friend Captain Hunken?"

"But I am, ma'am. . . . He had a way o' stepping back an' usin' his
reach . . . a trifle slow with the left, always . . . that was his
failin'. But the length of his arms would delight you--and he had a
hug, too, of his own--if you happened to take an interest in such
things."

"But I don't," protested Mrs Bosenna. "And you frighten me! If I'd
guessed that my other tenant was a prize-fighter--"

"Prize-fighter, ma'am? What, 'Bias? . . . He's the gentlest you ever
knew, and the easiest-goin': and for ladies' company--well, I don't
know," confessed Captain Cai, "as he ever found himself in such,
least-ways not to my knowledge. But I'll be bound he wouldn't be able
to open his mouth."

"--Unless in defence of a friend," suggested Mrs Bosenna, laughing.
"You must bring him to call on me."

Captain Cai shook his head.

"Oh"--she nodded confidently--"I'll make him talk, never fear!
If he's half so true a friend to you as you are to him--"

"He's a truer."

"Then, as a last resource, I have only to run _you_ down. So it's
easy."

The sucking-pig was followed by a delectable junket with Cornis