ine was bad, and Solesgate itself was dull. But these misfortunes Sir
Tancred would have endured cheerfully because the place suited
Hildebrand Anne, who had but lately recovered from an attack of scarlet
fever at Farndon-Pryze, but he could not endure Mr. Biggleswade. It
was not so much that he had reckoned up Mr. Biggleswade as a large,
fat, greasy rogue, nor was it that no snub once and for all stopped Mr.
Biggleswade from thrusting himself upon him with a snobbish
obsequiousness; it was Mr. Biggleswade's noisy and haphazard methods of
disposing of his food, which left small portions of each course
nestling in his straggling beard, and filled the air with the sound of
the feeding of pigs.

This Sir Tancred found unendurable, and the more unendurable that Mr.
Biggleswade had made up his mind that he enjoyed his meals more in the
presence of a baronet, and always waited for his coming.

Sir Tancred was eating his breakfast mournfully, therefore, reflecting
on the unkindness of Fortune, who had afflicted Tinker with his fever
at so inconvenient a time. For he had not been able to raise the money
to take him to make his convalescence at one of the more expensive
watering places, whither resort millionaires and the smart, whose
fondness for games of chance and skill would have kept him in careless
luxury. He had been driven to bring him to Solesgate, a town of six
bathing-machines; and there the rest of his ready money dwindled to a
few shillings. A sudden cessation of the sound of the feeding of pigs
caught him from his mournful reflections. He looked up quickly, to see
Mr. Biggleswade staring at his newspaper with a most striking
expression of triumphant greed.

On the instant Sir Tancred filled with the liveliest interest; emotion,
especially curious emotion, in his fellow creatures always aroused his
interest, and not infrequently brought him profit, and Mr.
Biggleswade's emotion seemed to him curiously violent to be excited by
the perusal of a newspaper. He made half a movement to show it to his
wife, caught Sir Tancred's eye, and setting it down, went on hastily
with his breakfast. He had not been so quick but that Sir Tancred had
seen that the paper was _The Daily Telegraph_, and the exciting
paragraph on the first page.

Sir Tancred brightened to the rest of his breakfast; he had little
doubt that he was on the track of some roguery or other, and he
promised himself a hunt through the paper till he fou