for some considerable time. Sally now seemed in
less of a hurry to get back to her pots and pans. A young man with
fair curly hair, and eager, bright blue eyes, was engaging most of her
attention and the whole of her time, whilst broad witticisms anent Jimmy
Pitkin's fictitious grandmother flew from mouth to mouth, mixed with
heavy puffs of pungent tobacco smoke.

Facing the hearth, his legs wide apart, a long clay pipe in his
mouth, stood mine host himself, worthy Mr. Jellyband, landlord of
"The Fisherman's Rest," as his father had before him, aye, and his
grandfather and great-grandfather too, for that matter. Portly in build,
jovial in countenance and somewhat bald of pate, Mr. Jellyband was
indeed a typical rural John Bull of those days--the days when our
prejudiced insularity was at its height, when to an Englishman, be he
lord, yeoman, or peasant, the whole of the continent of Europe was a den
of immorality and the rest of the world an unexploited land of savages
and cannibals.

There he stood, mine worthy host, firm and well set up on his limbs,
smoking his long churchwarden and caring nothing for nobody at home, and
despising everybody abroad. He wore the typical scarlet waistcoat, with
shiny brass buttons, the corduroy breeches, and grey worsted stockings
and smart buckled shoes, that characterised every self-respecting
innkeeper in Great Britain in these days--and while pretty, motherless
Sally had need of four pairs of brown hands to do all the work that
fell on her shapely shoulders, worthy Jellyband discussed the affairs of
nations with his most privileged guests.

The coffee-room indeed, lighted by two well-polished lamps, which hung
from the raftered ceiling, looked cheerful and cosy in the extreme.
Through the dense clouds of tobacco smoke that hung about in every
corner, the faces of Mr. Jellyband's customers appeared red and pleasant
to look at, and on good terms with themselves, their host and all the
world; from every side of the room loud guffaws accompanied pleasant,
if not highly intellectual, conversation--while Sally's repeated giggles
testified to the good use Mr. Harry Waite was making of the short time
she seemed inclined to spare him.

They were mostly fisher-folk who patronised Mr. Jellyband's coffee-room,
but fishermen are known to be very thirsty people; the salt which they
breathe in, when they are on the sea, accounts for their parched throats
when on shore, but "The Fisherman's Res