ven with
the impassioned aid of two London halfpenny dailies.

To resume, Mr Till had to go to Longshaw. Now, unless you possess a
most minute knowledge of your native country, you are probably not
aware that in Aynsley Street, Longshaw, there is a provision dealer
whose reputation for cheeses would be national and supreme if the whole
of England thought as the Five Towns thinks.

'Teddy,' Mrs Till said, as Mr Till was starting, 'you might as well
bring back with you a pound of Gorgonzola.' (Be it noted that I had the
details of the conversation from the lady herself.)

'Yes,' said he enthusiastically, 'I will.'

'Don't go and forget it,' she enjoined him.

'No,' he said. 'I'll tie a knot in my handkerchief.'

'A lot of good that'll do!' she observed. 'You'd tied a knot in your
handkerchief when you forgot that Councillor Barker's wife's funeral
was altered from Tuesday to Monday.'

'Ah!' he replied. 'But now I've got a bad cold.'

'So you have!' she agreed, reassured.

He tied the knot in his handkerchief and went.

Thanks to his cold he did not pass the cheesemonger's without entering.

He adored Gorgonzola, and he reckoned that he knew a bit of good
Gorgonzola when he met with it. Moreover, he and the cheesemonger were
old friends, he having buried three of the cheesemonger's children. He
emerged from the cheesemonger's with a pound of the perfectest
Gorgonzola that ever greeted the senses.

The abode of the censured parents was close by, and also close to the
station. He obtained the coffin without parley, and told the mother,
who showed him the remarkable child with pride, that under the
circumstances he should make no charge at all. It was a ridiculously
small coffin. He was quite accustomed to coffins. Hence he did the
natural thing. He tucked the little coffin under one arm, and, dangling
the cheese (neat in brown paper and string) from the other hand, he
hastened to the station. With his unmatched legs he must have made a
somewhat noticeable figure.

A loop-line train was waiting, and he got into it, put the cheese on
the rack in a corner, and the coffin next to it, assured himself that
he had not mislaid his return ticket, and sat down under his baggage.
It was the slackest time of day, and, as the train started at Longshaw,
there were very few passengers. He had the compartment to himself.

He was just giving way to one of those moods of vague and pleasant
meditation which are perhaps the chi