e. He wound
up--it was a plagiarism from a plumber--by telling Mr. Sidney that he
looked like a turkey-cock, had the morals of a parish bull, and need
never hope for a new pig-pound as long as he or Midmore lived.

'Very good,' said the giant. 'I reckon you thought you 'ad something
against me, and now you've come down an' told it me like man to man.
Quite right. I don't bear malice. Now, you send along those bricks an'
sand, an' I'll make a do to build the pig-pound myself. If you look at
my lease you'll find out you're bound to provide me materials for the
repairs. Only--only I thought there'd be no 'arm in my askin' you to do
it throughout like.'

Midmore fairly gasped. 'Then, why the devil did you turn my carts back
when--when I sent them up here to do it throughout for you?'

Mr. Sidney sat down on the floodgates, his eyebrows knitted in thought.

'I'll tell you,' he said slowly. ''Twas too dam' like cheatin' a suckin'
baby. My woman, she said so too.'

For a few seconds the teachings of the Immoderate Left, whose humour is
all their own, wrestled with those of Mother Earth, who has her own
humours. Then Midmore laughed till he could scarcely stand. In due time
Mr. Sidney laughed too--crowing and wheezing crescendo till it broke
from him in roars. They shook hands, and Midmore went home grateful that
he had held his tongue among his companions.

When he reached his house he met three or four men and women on
horse-back, very muddy indeed, coming down the drive. Feeling hungry
himself, he asked them if they were hungry. They said they were, and he
bade them enter. Jimmy took their horses, who seemed to know him. Rhoda
took their battered hats, led the women upstairs for hairpins, and
presently fed them all with tea-cakes, poached eggs, anchovy toast, and
drinks from a coromandel-wood liqueur case which Midmore had never known
that he possessed.

'And I _will_ say,' said Miss Connie Sperrit, her spurred foot on the
fender and a smoking muffin in her whip hand, 'Rhoda does one top-hole.
She always did since I was eight.'

'Seven, Miss, was when you began to 'unt,' said Rhoda, setting down more
buttered toast.

'And so,' the M.F.H. was saying to Midmore, 'when he got to your brute
Sidney's land, we had to whip 'em off. It's a regular Alsatia for 'em.
They know it. Why'--he dropped his voice--'I don't want to say anything
against Sidney as your tenant, of course, but I do believe the old
scoundrel's perfectly