“What’s your ’confidence’?” asked ’Biades, after a digestive pause.

His sister ’Beida turned about while she bumped herself up and down in a sitting posture on the lid of an old sea-chest overfilled with pillows, bed-curtains, and other “soft goods.”

“It isn’t your stummick, on which you’re crawlin’ at this moment like Satan in the garden.  And only yesterday your askin’ to be put into weskits on the ground of your age!  A nice business ’twould be to keep your front in buttons!” While admonishing ’Biades, ’Beida continued to bump herself on the sea-chest, her speech by consequence coming in short interrupted gushes like water from a pump.  “A Spy,” she continued, “is a man what creeps in a person’s belongings same as you’re doin’ at this moment, an’ then goes off an’ gets paid for writin’ to Germany about it:  which if we didn’ know from bitter experience as you couldn’t spell a, b, ‘ab,’ we should be feelin’ nervous at this moment, the way you’re behavin’.”

“How can you tell a Spy?” persisted ’Biades after another pause, ignoring reproof.  “Does he go about with a gamey leg, like Mr Nanjivell?  Or what?”

“Don’t you set up to laugh at gamey legs or any such infirmity,” his mother warned him, “when there’s an All-seein’ Eye about; an’, for all we know, around the corner at this moment gettin’ ready to strike you comical.”

“There’s no way to tell a Spy at first,” added ‘Beida; “an’ that’s why they’re so dangerous.  The usual way is that first you have your suspicions, an’ then, some day when he’s not lookin’, you search his premises an’ the fat’s in the fire.”

“What’s an infirmity?” asked ’Biades.  Getting no answer, after half a minute he asked, “What’s premises?”

Still there was no answer.  With a sigh he wriggled backwards out of his shelter.  Seizing the moment when his sister had at length pressed down the lid and his mother was kneeling to lock it, he slipped out of the room and betook himself to the water-side, where he fell into deep thought.

This happened on Tuesday.  During Wednesday and the morning of Thursday the child was extraordinarily well-behaved.  As Mrs Penhaligon observed to her daughter—­

“You kept warnin’ me he’d be a handful, messin’ about an’ unpackin’ things as soon as they was packed.  Whereas if he’d been his own father, he couldn’ ha’ been more considerate in keepin’ out o’ the way.  ’Tis wonderful how their tender intellec’s turn steady when there’s trouble in the family.”

“But there isn’t.”

“Well, you know what I mean.  For the last two days the blessed child might not ha’ been in existence, he’s such a comfort.”

“Well,” said ’Beida, “you may be right.  But I never yet knowed ’Biades quiet for half this time ’ithout there was somebody’s bill to pay at the end o’t.”