"What's the matter now?" said the other.

"Who wants your ham?"

"You do, I suppose, or you wouldn't cut it."

"No I don't; nor anything else either that you've got. It isn't fair
to ask a fellow into your house, and then say such things to him as
that. And it isn't what I've been accustomed to either; I can tell
you that, Mr Cheesacre."

"Oh, bother!"

"It's all very well to say bother, but I choose to be treated like a
gentleman wherever I go. You and I have known each other a long time,
and I'd put up with more from you than from anyone else; but--"

"Can you pay me the money that you owe me, Bellfield?" said
Cheesacre, looking hard at him.

"No, I can't," said Bellfield; "not immediately."

"Then eat your breakfast, and hold your tongue."

After that Captain Bellfield did eat his breakfast,--leaving the ham
however untouched, and did hold his tongue, vowing vengeance in his
heart. But the two men went into Norwich more amicably together than
they would have done had there been no words between them. Cheesacre
felt that he had trespassed a little, and therefore offered the
Captain a cigar as he seated himself in the cart. Bellfield accepted
the offering, and smoked the weed of peace.

"Now," said Cheesacre, as he drove into the Swan yard, "what do you
mean to do with yourself all day?"

"I shall go down to the quarters, and look the fellows up."

"All right. But mind this, Bellfield;--it's an understood thing, that
you're not to be in the Close before four?"

"I won't be in the Close before four!"

"Very well. That's understood. If you deceive me, I'll not drive you
back to Oileymead to-night."

In this instance Captain Bellfield had no intention to deceive.
He did not think it probable that he could do himself any good by
philandering about the widow early in the day. She would be engaged
with her dinner and with an early toilet. Captain Bellfield,
moreover, had learned from experience that the first comer has not
always an advantage in ladies' society. The mind of a woman is greedy
after novelty, and it is upon the stranger, or upon the most strange
of her slaves around her, that she often smiles the sweetest. The
cathedral clock, therefore, had struck four before Captain Bellfield
rang Mrs Greenow's bell, and then, when he was shown into the
drawing-room, he found Cheesacre there alone, redolent with the
marrow oil, and beautiful with the pink bosom.

"Haven't you seen her yet?" asked the C