“Well now, that’s handsome, be dazed if it hain’t.”

“Just receipt your bill, w-will you?  By the b-bye, Mr. Smith didn’t pay you anything on account?”

“I won’t tell a lie.  He did.  He give me a pound, but that don’t come in the reckonin’.  Hay was L3, wood fifteen shillin’, men’s time L1, beer two shillin’, odds and ends five shillin’, nails four-pence, twine a ha’penny, makin’ L5, 2_s._ 4-1/2_d._ I’ve a-took off L1, leavin’ L4 2_s_. 4-1/2_d._”

“Very well.  Here’s a s-stamp.”

The farmer receipted the bill.

“Thank’ee, sir.”  He cleared his throat, “If I med make so bold, sir, meanin’ no offence—­”

“What n-now?”

“Why, sir, speakin’ in my simple common way, I never hears a body stutter in his talk but I think of my brother Sam and how he cured hisself.  He was a terrible bad stutterer in his young days, he was, nearly bustin’ hisself tryin’ to get it out, poor soul.  But a clever parson chap learned him how to cure hisself, and if I med make so bold, I’ll tell ’ee how ’twas done.”

“I shall be d-delighted.”

“Well, this parson chap—­ah! he was a clever feller, everywhere except in the pulpit—­he said to my brother, ‘Sam,’ says he—­he always talked in that homely way—­’Sam, poor feller, I’ll tell ’ee what the bishop told me when I stuttered so bad I couldn’t say ’Dearly beloved brethren’ without bub—­bub—­bubbing awful.  ’Say the bub—­bub—­bub inside yerself,’ says he, ’and then you can stutter as long as you like without a soul knowin’ it.  My brother Sam thowt ’a med as well give it a trial, and he did, and bless ’ee, in a week he could talk as straightforward as the Prime Minister, and no one ’ud ever know what a terrible lot of b’s and m’s and other plaguey letters he swallered.  Try it, sir; say ‘Baby mustn’t bother mummy’ that way ten times every morning afore breakfast, and ‘Pepper-pots and mustard plasters’ afore goin’ to bed, and I lay you’ll get over it as quick as my brother Sam.  Good-night, sir and miss, and thank ’ee.”

“Why do you pretend so?” said Kate, laughing, when the door was shut.

“My dear Kate, I have stuttered for pleasure and profit ever since I discovered the efficacy of it at school.  When I didn’t know my lesson one day I put on a stammer, and my bub—­bub—­bubbing, as the farmer calls it, made the master so uncomfortable that, ever afterwards, at the first sign of it he passed me over.  That’s why I’m such a fool to-day.”

“You’re incorrigible.  Come, it’s time to dress for dinner.”

The time between dinner and eleven passed all too slowly.  Mrs. Smith and Barracombe played cribbage; Kate was restless, opening a book, laying it down, touching the piano, going to the window and peering out into the dark.

“Why are you so restless to-night, Kate?” asked her mother.  “One would think that Charley had been away for months instead of a week.”