[Illustration:  “Old-fashioned matrons clustered round to watch him cleaning the doorstep.”]

The captain attributed this satisfactory condition of affairs to the rules and regulations, though a slight indiscretion on the part of Mr. Tasker, necessitating the unframing of the document to add to the latter, caused him a little annoyance.

The first intimation he had of it was a loud knocking at the front door as he sat dozing one afternoon in his easy-chair.  In response to his startled cry of “Come in!” the door opened and a small man, in a state of considerable agitation, burst into the room and confronted him.

“My name is Chalk,” he said, breathlessly.

“A friend of Mr. Tredgold’s?” said the captain.  “I’ve heard of you, sir.”

The visitor paid no heed.

“My wife wishes to know whether she has got to dress in the dark every afternoon for the rest of her life,” he said, in fierce but trembling tones.

“Got to dress in the dark?” repeated the astonished captain.

“With the blind down,” explained the other.

Captain Bowers looked him up and down.  He saw a man of about fifty nervously fingering the little bits of fluffy red whisker which grew at the sides of his face, and trying to still the agitation of his tremulous mouth.

“How would you like it yourself?” demanded the visitor, whose manner was gradually becoming milder and milder.  “How would you like a telescope a yard long pointing—­”

He broke off abruptly as the captain, with a smothered oath, dashed out of his chair into the garden and stood shaking his fist at the crow’s-nest at the bottom.

“Joseph!” he bawled.

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Tasker, removing the telescope described by Mr. Chalk from his eye, and leaning over.

“What are you doing with that spy-glass?” demanded his master, beckoning to the visitor, who had drawn near.  “How dare you stare in at people’s windows?”

“I wasn’t, sir,” replied Mr. Tasker, in an injured voice.  “I wouldn’t think o’ such a thing—­I couldn’t, not if I tried.”

“You’d got it pointed straight at my bedroom window,” cried Mr. Chalk, as he accompanied the captain down the garden.  “And it ain’t the first time.”

“I wasn’t, sir,” said the steward, addressing his master.  “I was watching the martins under the eaves.”

“You’d got it pointed at my window,” persisted the visitor.

“That’s where the nests are,” said Mr. Tasker, “but I wasn’t looking in at the window.  Besides, I noticed you always pulled the blind down when you saw me looking, so I thought it didn’t matter.”

“We can’t do anything without being followed about by that telescope,” said Mr. Chalk, turning to the captain.  “My wife had our house built where it is on purpose, so that we shouldn’t be overlooked.  We didn’t bargain for a thing like that sprouting up in a back-garden.”