at back in his chair again and smoked in
silence, while Mrs. Negget, with a carpet-brush which almost spoke, swept
the pieces of dried mud from the stairs.

Mr. Negget was the last to go to bed that night, and finishing his pipe
over the dying fire, sat for some time in deep thought. He had from the
first raised objections to the presence of Mr. Bodfish at the farm, but
family affection, coupled with an idea of testamentary benefits, had so
wrought with his wife that he had allowed her to have her own way. Now
he half fancied that he saw a chance of getting rid of him. If he could
only enable the widow to catch him searching her house, it was highly
probable that the ex-constable would find the village somewhat too hot to
hold him. He gave his right leg a congratulatory slap as he thought of
it, and knocking the ashes from his pipe, went slowly up to bed.

He was so amiable next morning that Mr. Bodfish, who was trying to
explain to Mrs. Negget the difference between theft and kleptomania,
spoke before him freely. The ex-constable defined kleptomania as a sort
of amiable weakness found chiefly among the upper circles, and cited the
case of a lady of title whose love of diamonds, combined with great
hospitality, was a source of much embarrassment to her guests.

For the whole of that day Mr. Bodfish hung about in the neighbourhood of
the widow's cottage, but in vain, and it would be hard to say whether he
or Mr. Negget, who had been discreetly shadowing him, felt the
disappointment most. On the day following, however, the ex-constable
from a distant hedge saw a friend of the widow's enter the cottage, and
a little later both ladies emerged and walked up the road.

He watched them turn the corner, and then, with a cautious glance round,
which failed, however, to discover Mr. Negget, the ex-constable strolled
casually in the direction of the cottage, and approaching it from the
rear, turned the handle of the door and slipped in.

He searched the parlour hastily, and then, after a glance from the
window, ventured up stairs. And he was in the thick of his self-imposed
task when his graceless nephew by marriage, who had met Mrs. Driver and
referred pathetically to a raging thirst which he had hoped to have
quenched with some of her home-brewed, brought the ladies hastily back
again.

"I'll go round the back way," said the wily Negget as they approached the
cottage. "I just want to have a look at that pig of yours