should take him from Troy on the day of
all days to which every other soul in the town looked forward, was
quite of a piece with Cai Tamblyn's sardonic humour. But he surely
excelled himself when, the day before his marriage, he called on the
Mayor and begged leave to appoint the patient in the hospital as his
_locum tenens_ for the week.

"The man's well enough to look after the place," he urged; "and you
won't find him neglectin' it to go gaddin' round the shows. A wooden
leg's a wonderful steadier at fair-times." And the Doctor assented.

It were too much to say that his appointment, when Cai Tamblyn
reported it, touched our hero's sense of humour, for he had none; but
he winced under the dreadful irony of it.

"Do you know what you're asking?" he cried. "Suppose that visitors
call--as they will. Would you have me show them round and point out
my own relics?"

"Damme, and I thought I was givin' you a bit o' fun!" said Cai,
scratching his head. "It can't be often a man finds hisself in your
position; and in the old days when you got hold of a rarity you liked
to make the most of it."

"Fun!" echoed the Major. "And you'd have me reel off all those
reminiscences--all the sickening praise, yard by yard, out of that
infernal hand-book!"

Cai Tamblyn eyed him gravely.

"You don't like that neither?" he asked.

"Like it!" the poor man echoed again, sank into a chair, and,
shuddering, covered his face. "It makes my soul creep with shame."

Silence followed for a dozen long seconds.

"Master!"

The Major shuddered again, but looked up a moment later with tears in
his eyes as Cai laid a hand kindly yet respectfully on his shoulder.

"Master, I ax your pardon." He stepped back and paused, seeming
to swallow some words in his throat before he spoke again.
"You're a long way more of a man than ever I gave 'ee credit to be.
Twelve year I passed in your service, too; an' I take ye to witness
that 'twas Cai Tamblyn an' not Scipio Johnson that knawed 'ee agen,
for all the change in your faytures. Whereby you misjudged us, sir,
when you left me fifty pound and that nigger a hundred an' fifty.
Whereby I misjudged ye in turn, an' I ax your pardon."

"No, Cai; you judged me truly enough, if severely. There was a time
when I'd have fed myself on those praises that now sicken me."

"An' you was happy in them days."

"Yes, happy enough."

"Would you have 'em back, master?"

"Would I have them back?" The Maj