bout forty, with tiny feet and hands,
and "very quick on his pins," saluted the three parsons gravely.

"Mr Smith!" one parson stiffly inclined.

"Mr Smith!" from the second.

"Brother Smith!" from the third, who was Jock Smith's own parson, being
in charge of the Bethesda in Trafalgar Road where Jock Smith worshipped
and where he had recently begun to preach as a local preacher.

Jock Smith, herbalist, shook hands with vivacity but also with
self-consciousness. He was self-conscious because he knew himself to be
one of the chief characters and attractions of the town, because he was
well aware that wherever he went people stared at him and pointed him
out to each other. And he was half proud and half ashamed of his
notoriety.

Even now a little band of ragged children had wandered after him, and,
undeterred by the presence of the parsons, were repeating among
themselves, in a low audacious monotone:

"Jock-at-a-Venture! Jock-at-a-Venture!"

II

He was the youngest of fourteen children, and when he was a month old
his mother took him to church to be christened. The rector was the
celebrated Rappey, sportsman, who (it is said) once pawned the church
Bible in order to get up a bear-baiting. Rappey asked the name of the
child, and was told by the mother that she had come to the end of her
knowledge of names, and would be obliged for a suggestion. Whereupon
Rappey began to cite all the most ludicrous names in the Bible, such as
Aholibamah, Kenaz, Iram, Baalhanan, Abiasaph, Amram, Mushi, Libni,
Nepheg, Abihu. And the mother laughed, shaking her head. And Rappey went
on: Shimi, Carmi, Jochebed. And at Jochebed the mother became
hysterical with laughter. "Jock-at-a-Venture," she had sniggered, and
Rappey, mischievously taking her at her word, christened the infant
Jock-at-a-Venture before she could protest; and the infant was stamped
for ever as peculiar.

He lived up to his name. He ran away twice, and after having been both a
sailor and a soldier, he returned home with the accomplishment of
flourishing a razor, and settled in Bursley as a barber. Immediately he
became the most notorious barber in the Five Towns, on account of his
gab and his fisticuffs. It was he who shaved the left side of the face
of an insulting lieutenant of dragoons (after the great riots of '45,
which two thousand military had not quelled), and then pitched him out
of the shop, soapsuds and all, and fought him to a finish in the Cock
Ya