n' the best o' men as well as the cleverest--to notice that he
'adn't left no banks, to speak of. Not that 'twould matter to 'im
pers'nally--'avin' no further use for 'em."

Tilda, confounded by this close reasoning, was about to retreat with
dignity under the admission that, after all, canal-work gave no scope to
a genius such as Bill's, when 'Dolph came barking to announce the near
approach of Mr. Mortimer.

Mr. Mortimer, approaching with a gait modelled upon Henry Irving's, was
clearly in radiant mood. Almost he vaulted the stile between the field
and the canal bank. Alighting, he hailed the boat in nautical
language--

"Ahoy, Smiles! What cheer, my hearty?"

"Gettin' along nicely, sir," reported Mr. Bossom. "Nicely, but peckish.
The same to you, I 'ope."

"Good," was the answer. "Speak to the mariners: fall to't yarely, or we
run ourselves aground. Bestir, bestir!"

Tilda, who for the last minute or so had been unconsciously holding
Arthur Miles by the hand, was astonished of a sudden to find it
trembling in hers.

"You mustn' mind what Mr. Mortimer says," she assured the child
encouragingly--"it's on'y his way."

Mr. Mortimer stepped jauntily across the gang-plank, declaiming with so
much of gesture as a heavy market-basket permitted--

"The pirates of Parga, who dwell by the waves,
And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves,
Shall leave by the beach, Smiles, the long galley and oar--"

"I have done it, Smiles. In the words of the old-time classical
geometer, I have found it; and as he remarked on another occasion
(I believe subsequently), 'Give me where to stand, and I will move the
Universe.' His precise words, if I recall the original Greek, were _Dos
Pou Sto_--and the critical ear will detect a manly--er--self-reliance in
the terse monosyllables. In these days," pursued Mr. Mortimer, setting
down the market-basket, unbuttoning his furred overcoat, extracting a
green and yellow bandanna from his breastpocket and mopping his heated
brow, "in these days we have lost that self-confidence. We are weary,
disillusioned. We have ceased to expect gold at the rainbow's foot.
Speaking without disrespect to the poet Shelley"--here he lifted his hat
and replaced it--"a new Peneus does _not_ roll his fountains against the
morning star, whatever that precise--er--operation may have been.
But let us honour the aspiration, Smiles, though the chill monitor
within forbid us to endorse