churchwarden clays
with sealing-wax--and says she:

"What's the matter with your menkind?"

"Restin'," says Oke with a grin. "I don't own 'em, missus; but, from
what I can hear, they're restin' and recoverin' their strength."

"I've brought you the stakes from our side," says Sally, and down she
slaps a five-pound note and a sovereign upon the table.

"Take 'em up, missus--take 'em up. I don't feel equal to the
responsibility. This here's a public challenge, hey?"

"The publicker the better."

"Then we'll go to the Mayor about it and ask his Worship to hold the
stakes." Oke was chuckling to himself all this while, the reason
being that he'd managed to bespeak the loan of a six-oared galley
belonging to the Water-Guard, and, boat for boat, he made no doubt
she could show her heels to the _Indefatigable Woman_. He unlocked
his strong-box, took out and pocketed a bag of money, and reached his
hat off its peg. "I suppose 'twouldn't do to offer you my arm?" says
he.

"Folks would talk, Mr. Oke--thanking you all the same."

So out they went, and down the street side by side, and knocked at
the Mayor's door. The Mayor was taking a nap in his back-parlour
with a handkerchief over his face. He had left business soon
after burying his wife, who had kept him hard at work at the
cheese-mongering, and now he could sleep when he chose. But he woke
up very politely to attend to his visitors' business.

"Yes, for sure, I'll hold the stakes," said he: "and I'll see it put
in big print on the Regatta-bill. It ought to attract a lot of
visitors. But lor' bless you, Mr. Oke!--if you win, it'll do _me_ no
good. She"--meaning his wife--"has gone to a land where I'll never
be able to crow over her."

"Your Worship makes sure, I see, that we women are going to be beat?"
put in Sal.

"Tut-tut!" says the Mayor. "They've booked Seth Ede for stroke."
And with that he goes very red in the gills and turns to Landlord
Oke. "But perhaps I oughtn't to have mentioned that?" says he.

"Well," says Sal, "you've a-let the cat out of the bag, and I see
that all you men in the town are in league. But a challenge is a
challenge, and I mustn't go back on it." Indeed, in her secret heart
she was cheerful, knowing the worst, and considering it none so bad:
and after higgling a bit, just to deceive him, she took pretty well
all the conditions of the race as Oke laid 'em down. A tearing long
course it was to be, too, and pretty clos