Sir Felix, good man, started with a fixed idea that a regatta differed from a Primrose Fete, if at all, then only in being non-political.  He could not get it out of his head that public speeches were of the essence of the festivity; and when, with all the tact at my command, I insisted on aquatics, he countered me by proposing to invite down a lecturer from the Navy League!  As he put it in the heat of argument, ’Weren’t eight Dreadnoughts aquatic enough for anybody?’ But in the voting the three young footmen supported me nobly. They wanted fireworks, and were not wasting any money on lecturers:  also there was a feeling in Kirris-vean that, while a regatta could scarcely be held without boat-racing, the prizes should be just sufficient to attract competitors and yet on a scale provoking no one to grumble at the amount of subscribed money lost to the village.  A free public tea was suggested.  I resisted this largesse; and we compromised on ’No Charge for Bona-fide Schoolchildren’—­whatever that might mean—­and ’Fourpence a head for Adults.’

The weather prospects, as the moment drew near, filled us with anxious forebodings, for the anti-cyclonic spell showed signs of breaking, and the Sunday and Monday wore lowering faces.  But Tuesday dawned brilliantly; and when after a hasty breakfast I walked over to Kirris-vean, I found Sir Felix waiting for me at the top of the hill in his open landau, with a smile on his face, a rose in his button-hole, and a white waistcoat that put all misgivings to shame.  ‘A perfect day!’ he called out with a wave of the hand.

‘A foxy one,’ I suggested, and pointed out that the wind sat in a doubtful quarter, that it was backing against the sun, that it was light and might at any time die away and cheat us of our sailing matches.

‘Always the boats with you!’ he rallied me; ’my dear sir, it is going to be perfect.  As the song says, “We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, and we’ve got the money too.”  An entire success, you may take my word for it!’

We descended the hill to find the village gay with bunting, the competing boats lying ready off the pier, a sizeable crowd already gathered, and the Committee awaiting us at the beach-head.  Each committee-man wore a favour of blue-and-white ribbon, and upon our arrival every hat flew off to Sir Felix, while the band played ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes!’

It was, not to put too fine a point on the description, an atrocious band.  It had come from afar, from one of the inland china-clay villages, and in hiring it the Committee had been constant to its principle that no more money than was necessary should be allowed to go out of Kirris-vean.  Report—­malicious, I feel sure—­reached me later, that, at the first note of it, an aloe in Sir Felix’s gardens, a mile away—­a plant noted for blossoming once only in a hundred years-burst into profuse and instantaneous bloom.  Sir Felix himself, who abounded all day in happy turns of speech, said the best thing of this band.  He said it was sui generis.