Nicky-Nan withdrew his head hastily.

“Where’s Sam?” he asked.

“Gone down to Billy Bosistow’s to fetch his sea-boots.”

“I don’t follow ’ee.”  Nicky-Nan rubbed his unshaven jaw with two fingers.  “Is the world come to its end, then, that Billy Bosistow keeps open shop on a Sunday mornin’?”

“‘Tisn’ like that at all. . . .  You see, Sam’s a far-seein’ man, or I’ve tried to make him so.  I reckon there’s no man in Polpier’ll turn out in a kit smellin’ stronger of camphor, against the moth.  Twice this week I’ve had it out an’ brushed it, fingerin’ (God help me) the clothes an’ prayin’ no shell to strike en, here or there. . . .  Well, an’ last autumn, bein’ up to Plymouth, he bought an extry pair of sea-boots, Yarmouth-made, off some Stores on the Barbican, an’ handed ’em over to Billy to pickle in some sort o’ grease that’s a secret of his own to make the leather supple an’ keep it from perishin’.  He’ve gone down to fetch ’em; an’ there’s no Sabbath-breakin’ in a deed like that, when a man’s country calls en.”

“’Tis terrible sudden, all this,” said Nicky-Nan, ruminating.

“’Tis worse than sudden.  Here we be, with orders to clear out before Michaelmas:  and how be I to do that, with my man away?  Think of all the great lerrupin’ furnicher to be shifted an’ (what’s harder) stowed in a pokey little cottage that wasn’ none too big for Aun’ Bunney when she lived.  An’ sixteen steps up to the door, with a turn in ’em!  Do ‘ee mind what a Dover-to-pay there was gettin’ out the poor soul’s coffin?  An’ then look at the size of my dresser. . . .”

“I can’t think why you turn out, for my part.  Pamphlett’s served me with notice to quit by to-morra.  You don’t catch me, though.”

“Why, Mr Nanjivell, you won’t set yourself up to fly in the teeth of the law!”

“Just you wait. . . .  And Pamphlett doesn’ know all the law that’s in the land, neither, if he reckons to turn me out ’pon a Bank Holiday.”

Mrs Penhaligon stared.  “Well, I s’wow!  Bank Holiday to-morra, and I’d clean forgot it! . . .  But, with the Lord’s Sabbath standin’ ’pon its head, ‘tis excusable.  The children, now—­out an’ runnin’ the town in the Sunday clothes with never a thought o’ breakfast; and how I’m to get their boots an’ faces clean in time for Chapel, let alone washin’-up, I ask you!”

“Well, I’ll go upstairs an’ get a shave,” said Nicky-Nan. “That’ll feel like Sunday anyhow.”

“Poor lonely creatur’!” thought Mrs Penhaligon, who always pitied bachelors.  On an impulse she said, “An’ when you’ve done, Mr Nanjivell, there’ll be fried eggs an’ bacon, if you’re not above acceptin’ the compliment for once.”

When Nicky-Nan came downstairs again, clean-shaven and wearing his Sunday suit of threadbare sea-cloth, he found the Penhaligon children seated at the board, already plying their spoons in bowls of bread-and-milk.  As a rule, like other healthy children, they ate first and talked afterwards.  But to-day, with War in the air, they chattered, stirring the sop around and around.  ’Beida’s eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed.