“Go about your work, you foolish woman.”

“I suppose,” said Dinah, withdrawing her gaze reluctantly and obeying, “there’s always a something about a man!”

Mrs Bosenna stood by the kitchen-table, patting up another barm-cake.  She had a hand even lighter than Dinah’s with flour and pastry. . . .  The two captains had moved on to the gate of Home Parc, and she could still espy them past the edge of the window.  She saw Captain Hunken draw his hand horizontally with a slow explanatory gesture and then drop it abruptly at a right angle.

’Bias was, in fact, at that moment expounding to Cai, point by point and in a condescending way, the right outline of a prize Devon shorthorn.  Mrs Bosenna (who had taught him the little he knew) guessed as she watched the exposition, pursing her lips.

“A trifle o’ bluffness in the entry don’t matter, if you understand me,” said ‘Bias, retrieving his lesson.  “Aft o’ that, no sheer at all; a straight line till you come to the rump,—­or, as we’ll say, for argyment’s sake, the counter—­an’ then a plumb drop, plumb as a quay-punt.”

“Where did you pick up all this?” asked Cai.

“I don’t make any secret about it,” ’Bias owned.  “Mrs Bosenna taught me.  Though, when you come to think it out, ’tis as straightforward as sizing up a vessel.  You begin by askin’ yourself what the objec’ in question—­call it a cow, or call it a brigantine—­was designed for.  Now what’s a cow designed for?”

“Milk, I suppose,” hazarded Cai.

“Very well, then, I take you at that:  the squarer the cow the more she holds.  It stands to reason.”

“I don’t know.”  Cai made some show of obstinacy, but, it is feared, rather to test his friend than to arrive at the truth.  “A round cow,—­ supposing there was such a thing—­”

“But there isn’t.  It’s out of the question.”

“I speak under correction,” said Cai thoughtfully; “but looking at what cows I’ve seen,—­end on.  And anyway, you can’t call a cow’s udder square; not in any sense o’ the word.”

“What beats me, I’ll confess,” said ’Bias, shifting the argument, “is how these butchers and farmers at market can cast their eye over a bullock an’ judge his weight to a pound or two.  ’Tis a trick, I suppose; but I’d like to know how it’s worked.”

“Why?”

“If ‘twas a vessel, now, an’ tons burden in place o’ pounds’ weight, you an’ me might guess pretty right.  But when it comes to a bullock!”

“I don’t see,” objected Cai, “how it consarns either of us.”

“You don’t?” asked ’Bias with a look which, for him, was quick and keen.

“To be sure I don’t,” answered Cai.  “If it happened as I wanted to buy a bullock to eat, all at one time—­and if so be as I found myself at market in search o’ one,—­I should be anxious about the weight.  That goes without sayin’.  An’ the odds are I should ask the honestest-lookin’ fellow handy to give a guess for me.  But with you an’ me ‘tis a question o’ two pounds o’ rump steak.  I know by the look if ’tis tender, and I can tell by a look at the scales if ’tis fair weight.  I don’t ask to be shown the whole ox.”