red to pick out the flag; and now, my son, you've helped with the
lantern, so come down to the Why Not? and there I'll have a word with
Elzevir, who sadly needs the talk of kindly friends to cheer him, and
we'll find you a glass of Hollands to keep out autumn chills.'

I was but a lad, and thought it a vast honour to be asked to the Why
Not?--for did not such an invitation raise me at once to the dignity of
manhood. Ah, sweet boyhood, how eager are we as boys to be quit of thee,
with what regret do we look back on thee before our man's race is
half-way run! Yet was not my pleasure without alloy, for I feared even to
think of what Aunt Jane would say if she knew that I had been at the Why
Not?--and beside that, I stood in awe of grim old Elzevir Block, grimmer
and sadder a thousand times since David's death.

The Why Not? was not the real name of the inn; it was properly the Mohune
Arms. The Mohunes had once owned, as I have said, the whole of the
village; but their fortunes fell, and with them fell the fortunes of
Moonfleet. The ruins of their mansion showed grey on the hillside above
the village; their almshouses stood half-way down the street, with the
quadrangle deserted and overgrown; the Mohune image and superscription
was on everything from the church to the inn, and everything that bore it
was stamped also with the superscription of decay. And here it is
necessary that I say a few words as to this family badge; for, as you
will see, I was to bear it all my life, and shall carry its impress with
me to the grave. The Mohune shield was plain white or silver, and bore
nothing upon it except a great black 'Y. I call it a 'Y', though the
Reverend Mr. Glennie once explained to me that it was not a 'Y' at all,
but what heralds call a _cross-pall. Cross-pall_ or no _cross-pall,_ it
looked for all the world like a black 'Y', with a broad arm ending in
each of the top corners of the shield, and the tail coming down into the
bottom. You might see that cognizance carved on the manor, and on the
stonework and woodwork of the church, and on a score of houses in the
village, and it hung on the signboard over the door of the inn. Everyone
knew the Mohune 'Y' for miles around, and a former landlord having called
the inn the Why Not? in jest, the name had stuck to it ever since.

More than once on winter evenings, when men were drinking in the Why
Not?, I had stood outside, and listened to them singing 'Ducky-stones',
or 'Kegs bob