“He can’t be such a donkey!”

“And he’s been seen at the window on the seaside.  ’Who’s your Admiral staying at the house on the beach?’ men have inquired as they come ashore.  My husband has heard it.  Tinman’s got it on his brain.  He might be cured by marriage to a sound-headed woman, but he ’ll soon be wanting to walk about in silk legs if he stops a bachelor.  They tell me his old mother here had a dress value twenty pound; and pomp’s inherited.  Save as he may, there’s his leak.”

Herbert’s contempt for Tinman was intense; it was that of the young and ignorant who live in their imaginations like spendthrifts, unaware of the importance of them as the food of life, and of how necessary it is to seize upon the solider one among them for perpetual sustenance when the unsubstantial are vanishing.  The great event of his bailiff’s term of office had become the sun of Tinman’s system.  He basked in its rays.  He meant to be again the proud official, royally distinguished; meantime, though he knew not that his days were dull, he groaned under the dulness; and, as cart or cab horses, uncomplaining as a rule, show their view of the nature of harness when they have release to frisk in a field, it is possible that existence was made tolerable to the jogging man by some minutes of excitement in his bailiff’s Court suit.  Really to pasture on our recollections we ought to dramatize them.  There is, however, only the testimony of a maid and a mariner to show that Tinman did it, and those are witnesses coming of particularly long-bow classes, given to magnify small items of fact.

On reaching the hall Herbert found the fire alight in the smoking-room, and soon after settling himself there he heard Van Diemen’s voice at the hall-door saying good night to Tinman.

“Thank the Lord! there you are,” said Van Diemen, entering the room.  “I couldn’t have hoped so much.  That rascal!” he turned round to the door.  “He has been threatening me, and then smoothing me.  Hang his oil!  It’s combustible.  And hang the port he’s for laying down, as he calls it.  ‘Leave it to posterity,’ says I.  ‘Why?’ says he.  ’Because the young ones ‘ll be better able to take care of themselves,’ says I, and he insists on an explanation.  I gave it to him.  Out he bursts like a wasp’s nest.  He may have said what he did say in temper.  He seemed sorry afterwards—­poor old Mart!  The scoundrel talked of Horse Guards and telegraph wires.”

“Scoundrel, but more ninny,” said Herbert, full of his contempt.  “Dare him to do his worst.  The General tells me they ’d be glad to overlook it at the Guards, even if they had all the facts.  Branding ’s out of the question.”

“I swear it was done in my time,” cried Van Diemen, all on fire.

“It’s out of the question.  You might be advised to leave England for a few months.  As for the society here—­”

“If I leave, I leave for good.  My heart’s broken.  I’m disappointed.  I’m deceived in my friend.  He and I in the old days!  What’s come to him?  What on earth is it changes men who stop in England so?  It can’t be the climate.  And did you mention my name to General Fellingham?”