rection of the houseboat. He skirted the
village with its straggling lights, and made his way across the fields
to the river side. Nearing the boat cautiously, he ensconced himself in
the bushes on the bank, and watched and listened. There were two voices
audible. Barndale and Leland were engaged in serious and indeed in angry
talk. There was a woman in the question apparently, and it would seem
that the friends were quarrelling concerning her. But the Greek soon
heard enough to convince him that this woman was not Thecla Perzio. The
voices grew louder, and some open breach of the peace seemed imminent.
The friends were rehearsing their own especial scene in Barndale's
comedy.

It becomes necessary to this history at this point to set forth the fact
that one Hodges, resident in the village, had within an hour of this
time received intelligence of the straying of a cow. This man was a
yokel of no interest to us, apart from this one episode in his career.
He had supplied the inmates of the house-boat with new milk and fresh
butter from the time of their first coming. And it was he who had set
afloat a report, not unknown at the historic 'Swan,' to the effect that
for all so sweet as them two young gents did go about wi' one another,
they was a naggin' like blazes every night,' He came by now, driving his
recovered cow before him, and passed within a foot of the Greek, who
lay as still as death in the brushwood. The quarrel, when at its height,
ceased suddenly, and the voices fell so low that neither Hodges nor
the Greek could hear anything more than a murmur. The amateurs were
criticising the dialogue and its rendering over pipes and beer.

'Well,' said Hodges, addressing vacancy, 'if theer ain't murder afore
long, it _is_ a pity.'

Then the bovine Hodges went his way. Events supplied him with an
excitement which lasted him for life; and the younger Hodges who has
succeeded to his father's cows and remembrances, will not willingly let
die the story of his progenitor's association with this tragic tale.

The Greek lay hidden in the bushes, and listened to the soft retreating
steps in the field and the murmur of voices in the boat. By-and-by the
door opened, and the friends appeared.

'I shall not come back by the late train now, Jimmy,' Barndale said, as
he placed a small portmanteau in the dingy. 'You had better come down
with me to the "Swan" and scull up again.'

'No,' said Leland, unconscious of the impending fat