John Peter received Captain Cai in his workshop—­a room ample enough for a studio and lit by a large window that faced north, but darkened by cobwebs, dirty, and incredibly littered with odds and ends of futile apparatus.  He put a watchmaker’s glass to his eye and peered long into the bowels of the musical box.

“The works are clogged with dust,” he announced.  “Fairly caked with oil and dirt.  No wonder it won’t go.”

“But it does go,” objected Captain Cai.

“You don’t tell me! . . .  Well, you’d best let me take out the works, any way, and give them a bath of paraffin.”

“Is it so serious as all that? . . .  What I came about now, was to ask you to make a brass plate for the lid—­with an inscription.”  Captain Cai pulled out a scrap of paper.  “Something like this, ’Presented to Caius Hocken, Master of the Hannah Hoo, on the Occasion of his Retirement.  By his affectionate undersigned’:  then the names, with maybe a motto or a verse o’ poetry if space permits.”

“What sort of poetry?”

“Eh? . . .  ‘Tell ye the truth, I didn’ know till this moment that there were different sorts.  Well, we’ll have the best.”

“Why not go to Benny, and get him to fix you up something appropriate?” suggested John Peter.  “Old Benny, I mean, that writes the letters for seamen.  He’s a dab at verses.  People go to him regular for the In-Memoriams they put in the newspaper.”

“That’s an idea, too,” said Captain Cai.  “I’ll consult him to-morrow.  But that won’t hinder your getting ahead wi’ the plate?” he added; for John Peter’s ways were notorious.

“How would you like it?” John Peter looked purblindly about him, rubbing his spectacles with a thread-bare coat-tail.

“Well, I don’t mind,” said Cai with promptitude—­“Though ’tis rather early in the morning.”

“Old English?”

“Perhaps I don’t know it by that name.”

“Or there’s Plain.”

“Not for me, thank ye.”

“—­Or again, there’s Italic; to my mind the best of all.  It lends itself to little twiddles and flourishes, according to your taste.”  Old John Peter led him to the wall and pointed with a dirty finger; and Cai gasped, finding his attention directed to a line of engraved coffin-plates.

“That’s Italic,” said John Peter, selecting an inscription and tracing over the flourishes with his thumb-nail. “’William Penwarne, b. 1837—­’ that’s the year the Queen came to the throne.  It’s easier to read, you see, than old English, and far easier than what we call Gothic, or Ecclesiastical—­which is another variety—­though, of course, not so easy as Plain.  Here you have Plain—­” He indicated an inscription—­’Samuel Bosenna, of Rilla, b. 1830, d. 1895.”

“Would that be th’ old fellow up the valley, as was?—­Mrs Bosenna’s husband?” asked Cai, somewhat awed.

“That’s the man.”