soap and furniture
polish. When you shall have learned, dear ladies, to _keep_ your
domains clean without so furiously _getting_ them clean, you will have
earned, in our eyes, your somewhat dubious title of housekeepers.
Meanwhile, continue, in heaven's name, to think us the contentedly
dirty sex!

From the kitchen ell delicious odours proceeded, and as we sat down
around the shining old table with its fine, much-darned linen, and its
delicate china eked out where necessary by cheap, coarse, village
crockery, a heavy-faced fellow with dull eyes under a shock of hair
served us with what, upon mature consideration, I believe to have been
the finest breakfast I have ever eaten. A great fresh fish, broiled
with bacon, plenty of those delicious corn-meal muffins (I believe
they are locally and truly known as "gems") mealy potatoes fried in
bacon fat, and a sort of tart jam or marmalade made of wild plums to
top off with, the whole washed down with strong coffee and rich cream,
melted before our keen-edged appetites like dew before the hungry sun,
and we hardly spoke as we filled ourselves.

Much combined to give a flavour to the meal: the long, worried night,
the short, cool plunge, the excitement of our adventure, the mystery
of this empty house (for neither Margarita nor any other hostess was
present) and in my own case the wild, heady consciousness of that
absurd, incredible thing that had just happened to me: the confused
yet certain sense that it could never be quite the same with me as it
had been before I met that extraordinary girl in the faded red jersey.
It was too soon to think about it, I was still stupid from the shock
of it, but my blood ran very sweetly through my veins, the delicious,
strong air of the beach was in my nostrils and the food was fit for
the hunger of the gods.

CHAPTER XI

OUR PARSON PROVES CAPABLE

At last even we could eat no more, and Roger pulled out an old pipe
that I had never seen before, pushed a jar of fragrant tobacco toward
us, brought us pipes from the chimney-piece and crossed his legs
definitely.

"I suppose, Tip," he said, "you're wondering why you're here, eh?"

"A little," said Tip comfortably, "but not too much. To tell you the
truth, fellows, I haven't had such a thoroughly good time for--oh, for
ten years, I should say! Somehow I feel as if everything but just this
actual moment--this breakfast, this pipe, this queer old room--was a
sort of dream and these