to be right--to a sensible man's way of thinking?--though not, I
grant ye, to his own interests--there's another tale." And Mr. Billing's
staunch adherence to the hero of the village was cried out to his credit
when Sedgett stated, on Stephen Bilton's authority, that Robert's errand
was the defence of a girl who had been wronged, and whose whereabout,
that she might be restored to her parents, was all he wanted to know.
This story passed from mouth to mouth, receiving much ornament in the
passage. The girl in question became a lady; for it is required of a mere
common girl that she should display remarkable character before she can
be accepted as the fitting companion of a popular hero. She became a
young lady of fortune, in love with Robert, and concealed by the artifice
of the offending gentleman whom Robert had challenged. Sedgett told this
for truth, being instigated to boldness of invention by pertinacious
inquiries, and the dignified sense which the whole story hung upon him.

Mrs. Boulby, who, as a towering woman, despised Sedgett's weak frame, had
been willing to listen till she perceived him to be but a man of fiction,
and then she gave him a flat contradiction, having no esteem for his
custom.

"Eh! but, Missis, I can tell you his name--the gentleman's name," said
Sedgett, placably. "He's a Mr. Algernon Blancove, and a cousin by
marriage, or something, of Mrs. Lovell."

"I reckon you're right about that, goodman," replied Mrs. Boulby, with
intuitive discernment of the true from the false, mingled with a desire
to show that she was under no obligation for the news. "All t' other's a
tale of your own, and you know it, and no more true than your rigmaroles
about my brandy, which is French; it is, as sure as my blood's British."

"Oh! Missis," quoth Sedgett, maliciously, "as to tales, you've got
witnesses enough it crassed chann'l. Aha! Don't bring 'em into the box.
Don't you bring 'em into ne'er a box."

"You mean to say, Mr. Sedgett, they won't swear?"

"No, Missis; they'll swear, fast and safe, if you teach 'em. Dashed if
they won't run the Pilot on a rock with their swearin'. It ain't a good
habit."

"Well, Mr. Sedgett, the next time you drink my brandy and find the
consequences bad, you let me hear of it."

"And what'll you do, Missis, may be?"

Listeners were by, and Mrs. Boulby cruelly retorted; "I won't send you
home to your wife;" which created a roar against this hen-pecked man.

"As to conse