“To be sure, sir.”

“So much the better—­but I will talk of that presently.  I, too, am a single man, with rather peculiar tastes.  One of these is solitude.  I had heard of Troy as a place where I was likely to find this, though my experience of this morning—­”

“Never mind, sir.  Accidents will happen even in the best reggylated families.  You was took for another, which has happened even to Bible characters afore this—­though Jacob’s the only one I can call to mind just now.”

“Still, I should be sorry to go back with the knowledge that my journey has been in vain.  But I must have solitude at any price, and the reason why I am consulting you is that you might possibly know of a house to let in this neighbourhood, where I could be alone and secure against visitors.”

Caleb scratched his head.

“I’m sure, sir, ’tes hard to say.  Troy’s a powerful place for knowin’ what your neighbour’s got for dinner, and they do say as the Admiral’s telescope will carry dro’ a brick wall.”

Mr. Fogo’s face fell.

“Stop a bit,” said Caleb more brightly.  “About livin’ inside o’ the town, now—­es that a shiny cannon?”

“A what?”

“A shiny cannon—­which es the same as to say, won’t et do elst?”

“Oh, a sine-qua-non,” said Mr. Fogo; “no, I am not particularly anxious to live in the town itself.”

“Wud the matter of a mile up the river be out o’ the way?”

“Not at all.”

“An’ about rent?”

“Within reasonable limits, that would not matter.”

“Then my advice to you, sir, es to see the Twins about et.”

Mr. Fogo’s mild face looked more puzzled than ever.  He removed his spectacles, wiped and resumed them.

“For any reasonable object,” he said, “I am ready to see any number of twins—­much as I dislike babies—­”

But here Caleb interrupted him by bursting into a roar of laughter which lasted for half a minute.

“Babbies!  Well I—­ho! ho!—­’scuse me, sir—­but aw dear, aw dear!  Babbies!  Bab—­” Here he slapped his thigh and broke into another roar, at the end of which he grew fairly black in the face.

“Bless yer innocent heart, sir!  They’m a matter o’ six foot high, the both—­and risin’ forty.  Dearlove’s their name—­and lives up the river ‘long wi’ their sister—­Peter an’ Paul an’ Tamsin (which es short for Thom-a-si-na), an’ I’ve heerd tell as the boys came nigh to bein’ chrisn’d Sihon an’ Og, on’y the old Vicar said he’d be blowed fust—­very free wi’ his langwidge was th’ ould Vicar.”

“I should fancy so,” said Mr. Fogo; “but you’ll excuse me if I don’t quite see, yet, why you advise me to call on these people.”

“No offence, sir.  On’y they owns Kit’s House, that’s all.”

“I see; and Kit’s House is the place you have in your mind.”

“That’s et, sir.”

“And these Dearloves, where do they live?”