house,’ says you—­or to that effect.  I wasn’ so mad but, when I heard ’ee, there was time to glimpse mother Climoe’s face.  Oh yes!  I know what you’ll be sayin’.  ‘Talk, is it?’ you’ll be sayin’, just like my Sam:  an’ ‘Let them talk.  What’s talk?’—­an’ talk, all the time, two-thirds of every decent woman’s life!”

“I never heard such dratted nonsense in all my born days.”

“That’s because you was never married.  You’d have heard it from a wife, half your time:  though I dare say”—­Mrs Penhaligon sighed—­ “‘twould ha’ been with you like the rest. . . .  ’A nice cauch Mr Nanjivell’s made of it,’ said I to myself, getting back to the kitchen:  ‘but he’s under notice to quit:  and if he quits quick an’ delicate, mebbe there’s no great harm done.’  So I came along to ask you about it.”

At this point Nicky-Nan fairly lost command of his temper.

“So you’re one wi’ the rest, eh?  All in one blasted conspiracy to turn me to doors!  One comes threatenin’, t’other comes carneyin’, but all endin’ in the same lidden.[2] ’Your health ben’t the best, Nanjivell:  let me recommend a change of air.’  ’Nanjivell, you’re a fine upstandin’ fellow, an’ young for your age.  Why don’t ’ee leg it off to the War?’ ’These be hard times, Nanjivell; so I’m forced to ask ‘ee for your rent, or out you go.’  An’ now along you come wi’ the latest.  ‘Would you mind makin’ yourself scarce, Mr Nanjivell, to oblige a lady as has lost confidence in her repitation?’ Now look ’ee here, ma’am—­what I said to that woman Polsue, just now, is no more than I’m able to abide by.  If the shoe pinches at any time, you can come to me, and I’ll reckon up wi’ Sam Penhaligon when he comes back.  What’s more—­though, to be sure, ‘tis no affair o’ mine—­I reckon Sam Penhaligon’s the only chap alive, savin’ yourself, consarned in this repitation you’ve started to make such a fuss about.  But you’re playin’ Pamphlett’s game, ma’am, to turn me out,” wound up Nicky-Nan wrathfully, turning away:  “that’s what you’re doin’:  and I’ll see you—­”

He closed the oath upon a slam of the door.

“There was never a man in this world,” sighed Mrs Penhaligon as she regained her own kitchen, “but hisself came afore all the world.”  She arrested her hand on the cover of the flour-barrel.

“He talked so confident of his money, too. . . .  Funny thing if Nicky-Nan, that we’ve been pityin’ all this time, should turn out to be a miser!”

An hour later, in the full light of the afternoon sunshine, Nicky-Nan emerged from the old house with a shovel on his arm and a bundle dangling from it.  He had heard ’Bert Penhaligon say that the Boy Scouts were employed by night only for coast-watching.  By day the pilots with their telescopes habitually commanded this whole stretch of coast, nor could the periscope of a submarine push itself above the inshore water and not be detected.

At the corner of the Warren, where the cliff turns eastwardly with a sharp bend, Nicky-Nan almost ran into Policeman Rat-it-all, who pulled himself up for a chat as usual.