a stamp of the foot. "Would you
not have done as much for me if you'd seen that thing happen on my land,
now?"

Forgotten--forgotten was the College and the decency due to elders!
McTurk was treading again the barren purple mountains of the rainy
West coast, where in his holidays he was viceroy of four thousand naked
acres, only son of a three-hundred-year-old house, lord of a crazy
fishing-boat, and the idol of his father's shiftless tenantry. It was
the landed man speaking to his equal--deep calling to deep--and the old
gentleman acknowledged the cry.

"I apologize," said he. "I apologize unreservedly--to you, and to the
Old Country. Now, will you be good enough to tell me your story?"

"We were in your combe," McTurk began, and he told his tale alternately
as a schoolboy and, when the iniquity of the thing overcame him, as an
indignant squire; concluding: "So you see he must be in the habit of
it. I--we---one never wants to accuse a neighbor's man; but I took the
liberty in this case--"

"I see. Quite so. For a reason ye had. Infamous---oh, infamous!"

The two had fallen into step beside each other on the lawn, and Colonel
Dabney was talking as one man to another. "This comes of promoting a
fisherman--a fisherman--from his lobster-pots. It's enough to ruin the
reputation of an archangel. Don't attempt to deny it. It is! Your father
has brought you up well. He has. I'd much like the pleasure of his
acquaintance. Very much, indeed. And these young gentlemen? English
they are. Don't attempt to deny it. They came up with you, too?
Extraordinary! Extraordinary, now! In the present state of education I
shouldn't have thought any three boys would be well enough grounded.
But out of the mouths of--No--no! Not that by any odds. Don't attempt to
deny it. Ye're not! Sherry always catches me under the liver, but--beer,
now? Eh? What d'you say to beer, and something to eat? It's long since
I was a boy--abominable nuisances; but exceptions prove the rule. And a
vixen, too!" They were fed on the terrace by a gray-haired housekeeper.
Stalky and Beetle merely ate, but McTurk with bright eyes continued a
free and lofty discourse; and ever the old gentleman treated him as a
brother.

"My dear man, of course ye can come again. Did I not say exceptions
prove the rule? The lower combe? Man, dear, anywhere ye please, so long
as you do not disturb my pheasants. The two are not incompatible. Don't
attempt to deny it. They're not! I'l