“By the by,” said Jos, “you remember Albert Grapp?  I’ve asked him to step over from Hanbridge and help eat our snack on Christmas Day.”

Emily gave Jos one of her looks.  “You’ve asked that Mr. Grapp?”

“No objection, I hope?  He’s not a bad sort.  And he’s considered a bit of a ladies’ man, you know.”

She gathered up all the scruts and let them fall in a rattling shower on the exiguous pudding.  Two or three fell wide of the basin.  These she added.

“Steady on!” cried Jos.  “What’s that for?”

“That’s for your guest,” replied his sister.  “And if you think you’re going to palm me off on to him, or on to any other young fellow, you’re a fool, Jos Wrackgarth.”

The young man protested weakly, but she cut him short.

“Don’t think,” she said, “I don’t know what you’ve been after, just of late.  Cracking up one young sawny and then another on the chance of me marrying him!  I never heard of such goings on.  But here I am, and here I’ll stay, as sure as my name’s Emily Wrackgarth, Jos Wrackgarth!”

She was the incarnation of the adorably feminine.  She was exquisitely vital.  She exuded at every pore the pathos of her young undirected force.  It is difficult to write calmly about her.  For her, in another age, ships would have been launched and cities besieged.  But brothers are a race apart, and blind.  It is a fact that Jos would have been glad to see his sister “settled”—­preferably in one of the other four Towns.

She took up the spoon and stirred vigorously.  The scruts grated and squeaked together around the basin, while the pudding feebly wormed its way up among them.

II.

Albert Grapp, ladies’ man though he was, was humble of heart.  Nobody knew this but himself.  Not one of his fellow clerks in Clither’s Bank knew it.  The general theory in Hanbridge was “Him’s got a stiff opinion o’ hisself.”  But this arose from what was really a sign of humility in him.  He made the most of himself.  He had, for instance, a way of his own in the matter of dressing.  He always wore a voluminous frock-coat, with a pair of neatly-striped vicuna trousers, which he placed every night under his mattress, thus preserving in perfection the crease down the centre of each.  His collar was of the highest, secured in front with an aluminium stud, to which was attached by a patent loop a natty bow of dove-coloured sateen.  He had two caps, one of blue serge, the other of shepherd’s plaid.  These he wore on alternate days.  He wore them in a way of his own—­well back from his forehead, so as not to hide his hair, and with the peak behind.  The peak made a sort of half-moon over the back of his collar.  Through a fault of his tailor, there was a yawning gap between the back of his collar and the collar of his coat.  Whenever he shook his head, the peak of his cap had the look of a live thing trying to investigate this abyss.  Dimly aware of the effect, Albert Grapp shook his head as seldom as possible.