I assured him that, hard as it might drive us, the thing could be done.  ‘I shall feel vastly more confident,’ he was good enough to say, ‘if you will consent to join our Committee.’  And I accepted, on the prospect of seeing some fun.  But ah! could I have foreseen what fun!

’You relieve my mind, indeed. . . .  And—­er—­perhaps you might also help us by officiating as starter and—­er—­judge, or timekeeper?’

‘Willingly,’ said I; ‘in any capacity the Committee may wish.’

’They will be more inclined to trust the decisions of one who—­er—­ does not live among them.’

‘Is that so?’ said I.  ’In Kirris-vean, one would have thought—­but, after all, I shall have to forgo whatever public confidence depends on the competitors being unacquainted with me, since two-thirds of them will come to you from Troy.’

‘You are sure?’

’Quite.  Has it not struck you, Sir Felix, that Kirris-vean—­ideal spot for a regatta—­has in itself neither the boats nor the men for one?’

‘We might fill up with a launch of the lifeboat,’ he hazarded.

‘If one could only be certain of the weather.’

‘And a public tea, and a procession of the school children.’

‘Admirable,’ I agreed.  ‘Never fear, we will make up a programme.’

’Oh, and—­er—­by the way, Bates of the Wheatsheaf came to me this morning for an Occasional Licence.  He proposes to erect a booth in his back garden.  You see no objection?’

‘None at all.’

’A most trustworthy man. . . .  He could not apply, you see, at our last Petty Sessions because he did not then know that a regatta was contemplated; and the 25th will, of course, be too late.  But the licence can be granted under these circumstances by any two magistrates sitting together; and I would suggest that you and I—­’

‘Certainly,’ said I, and accompanied Sir Felix to the small room that serves Troy for an occasional courthouse, where we solemnly granted Bates his licence.

There is a something about Sir Felix that tempts to garrulity, and I could fill pages here with an account of our preparations for the Regatta; the daily visits he paid me—­always in a fuss, and five times out of six over some trivial difficulty that had assailed him in the still watches of the night; the protracted meetings of Committee in the upper chamber of the lifeboat-house at Kirris-vean.  But these meetings, and the suggestions Sir Felix made, and the votes we took upon them, are they not recorded in the minute-book of the First and Last Kirris-vean Regatta?  Yes, thus I have to write it, and with sorrow:  there will never be another Regatta in that Arcadian village.