“Because,” continued Mr. Goodfellow, after a pause, “I know better.  Ever been to Plymouth?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Live there?”

“No, sir.”

He seemed to be disappointed.

“You go past the bottom of Treville Street, and there the shop is, slap in front of you.  You can’t miss it, because it has a plaster-of-Paris cow in the window, and the proprietor’s called Mudge.  I go to Plymouth every week on purpose to see her.”

“By coach, sir?” I asked, suddenly interested, and eager to compare notes with him on the Royal Mail and its rivals, the Self-Defence and Highflyer.

“Coach?  Not a bit of it.  Shank’s mare, my boy, every step of the way; and Martha’s worth it.  That’s the best of bein’ in love; it makes you want to do things.  By the way,” he asked “you ain’t thinkin’ to learn the violin, by any chance?”

“No, sir.”

“No,” he said reflectively.  “You wouldn’t—­not at Stimcoe’s.  Not, mind you, that I believe in coddling.  Nobody ever coddled Nelson, and yet what happened?” He shut one eye, put his pencil to it for an imaginary telescope, and took a nautical survey of the back premises.

“That rain-shute’s out of order,” he said, addressing Captain Coffin.  “Give me a shilling to put it right for you, and you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble.”

“That’s the landlord’s affair,” answered Captain Coffin, “and I’m not paying you fippence an’ hour to talk.

“But, sir,” I put in, “if you walk to Plymouth you must pass the house where I live—­a low-roofed house about three miles this side of St. Germans village, with a thatch on it, and windows opening right on the road, and ‘Minden Cottage’ painted over the door.”

“Know it?  Bless my soul, to be sure I know it!  Why, the last time but one I passed that way, taking note that one of the window-hinges was out of gear, I knocked and asked leave to repair it.  A lady with side-curls opened the door, and after the job was done took me into the parlour an’ gave me a jugful of cider over and above the sixpence charged.  I believe she’d have made it a shillin’, too, only when I told her she lived in a very pretty house, and asked if she owned it or rented it, she turned very stiff in her manner.  Touchy as tinder she was; and if that comes of being a lady, I’m glad my Martha’s more sociable.”

“That was Plinny—­Miss Plinlimmon, I mean.  You didn’t catch sight of my father—­Major Brooks?”

“No, I didn’t.  But I stopped to pass the time o’ day with the landlord of the Seven Stars Inn, a mile along the road, and there I heard about ’en.  So you’re Major Brooks’s son?  Well, then, by all accounts you’ve got a thunderin’ good father.  Old English gentleman, straight is a ramrod—­pays his way, fears God and honours the King—­ such was the landlord’s words; and he told me the cottage, as you call it, was rented at twenty-five pounds a year, with a walled garden an’ a paddock thrown in, which I call dirt cheap.”