Mr Pinsent. 'Do you suppose I'd do this for a
joke?'

I don't know,' responded Mr Garraway, with guarded candour.
'I feared it. But, of course, if they've stolen your pigeons, 'tis
another matter. A very serious matter, as you say, and no doubt your
being mayor makes it all the worse.'

Now this attitude of Mr Garraway conveyed a hint of warning, had Mr
Pinsent been able to seize it. The inhabitants of Troy have, in
fact, a sense of humour, but it does not include facetiousness.
On the contrary, facetiousness affronts and pains them. They do not
understand it, and Mr Pinsent understood nothing else. Could he have
been told that for close upon twenty years he had been afflicting his
neighbours with the pleasantries he found so enjoyable, his answer
had undoubtedly been 'The bigger numskulls they!' But now his doom
was upon him.

He ate his breakfast that morning in silence. Mrs Salt, burning to
discuss the robbery, set down the dishes with a quite unnecessary
clatter, but in vain. He scarcely raised his head.

'Indeed, sir, and I've never known you so upset,' she broke out at
length, unable to contain herself longer. 'Which I've always said
that you was wonderful, the way you saw the bright side of everything
and could pass it off with a laugh.'

'Good Lord!' said Mr Pinsent testily. 'Did I ever call midnight
robbery a laughing matter?'

'No--o,' answered Mrs Salt, yet as one not altogether sure.
'And I dare say your bein' mayor makes you take a serious view.'

Breakfast over, the mayor took hat and walking-stick for his
customary morning stroll along the street to Butcher Trengrove's to
choose the joint for his dinner and pick up the town's earliest
gossip. It is Troy's briskest hour; when the dairy carts, rattling
homeward, meet the country folk from up-the-river who have just
landed at the quays and begun to sell from door to door their poultry
and fresh eggs, vegetables, fruit, and nosegays of garden flowers;
when the tradesmen, having taken down their shutters, stand in the
roadway, admire the effect of their shop-windows and admonish the
apprentices cleaning the panes; when the children loiter and play at
hop-scotch on their way to school, and the housewives, having packed
them off, find time for neighbourly clack over the scouring of
door-steps.

It might be the mayor's fancy and no more, but it certainly appeared
to him that the children smiled with a touch of mockery as they met
him and sa