him; Mr. Gunnill, after a
vain attempt to meet her gaze, busied himself with his meal.

"The idea of watching every mouthful I eat!" said Miss Gunnill,
tragically; "the idea of complaining because I have some breakfast! I'd
never have believed it of you, never! It's shameful! Fancy grudging
your own daughter the food she eats!"

Mr. Gunnill eyed her in dismay. In his confusion he had overestimated
the capacity of his mouth, and he now strove in vain to reply to this
shameful perversion of his meaning. His daughter stood watching him with
grief in one eye and calculation in the other, and, just as he had put
himself into a position to exercise his rights of free speech, gave a
pathetic sniff and walked out of the room.

She stayed indoors all day, but the necessity of establishing his
innocence took Mr. Gunnill out a great deal. His neighbours, in the hope
of further excitement, warmly pressed him to go to prison rather than pay
a fine, and instanced the example of an officer in the Salvation Army,
who, in very different circumstances, had elected to take that course.
Mr. Gunnill assured them that only his known antipathy to the army, and
the fear of being regarded as one of its followers, prevented him from
doing so. He paid instead a fine of ten shillings, and after listening
to a sermon, in which his silver hairs served as the text, was permitted
to depart. His feeling against Police-constable Cooper increased with
the passing of the days. The constable watched him with the air of a
proprietor, and Mrs. Cooper's remark that "her husband had had his eye
upon him for a long time, and that he had better be careful for the
future," was faithfully retailed to him within half an hour of its
utterance. Convivial friends counted his cups for him; teetotal friends
more than hinted that Cooper was in the employ of his good angel.

[Illustration: "The constable watched him with the air of a proprietor."]

Miss Gunnill's two principal admirers had an arduous task to perform.
They had to attribute Mr. Gunnill's disaster to the vindictiveness of
Cooper, and at the same time to agree with his daughter that it served
him right. Between father and daughter they had a difficult time, Mr.
Gunnill's sensitiveness having been much heightened by his troubles.

"Cooper ought not to have taken you," said Herbert Sims for the fiftieth
time.

"He must ha' seen you like it dozens o' times before," said Ted Drill,
who, in his