"Ho!" Mr Penhaligon brought his fist down on the table with huge
enjoyment. "Hear that, my dear? Wants to know why we didn' marry
years afore we did?" He turned to his wife, appealing to her to
enjoy the joke, but hastily averted his eyes. "Well, now, I'll tell
ye, sonny--if it's strictly atween you an' me an' the bedpost.
I asked her half a dozen times: but she wouldn' have me. No: look at
me she wouldn' till I'd pined away in flesh for her, same as you see
me at present. . . . Eh, M'ria? What's your version?"

Mrs Penhaligon burst into tears; and then, as her husband jumped up
to console her, started to scold the children furiously for dawdling
over breakfast, when goodness knew, with their clothes in such a
state, how long it would take to get them ready for Chapel.

The children understood and gulped down the rest of their breakfast
hastily, while their mother turned to the fireplace and set the
saucepan hissing again. Having finished this second fry, she tipped
the cooked eggs on to the dish, and swept the youngsters off to be
tittivated.

Nicky-Nan and his host ate in a constrained silence. Nicky, though
ravenous, behaved politely, and only accepted a fifth egg under
strong pressure.

"Curious caper, this o' Germany's," said Mr Penhaligon, by way of
making conversation. "But our Navy's all right."

"Sure," Nicky-Nan agreed.

"I've been studyin' the papers, though--off an' on. The Kaiser's
been layin' up for this, these years past: and by my reck'nin' 'tis
goin' to be a long business. . . . I don't tell the Missus _that_,
you'll understand? But I'd take it friendly if you kept an eye on
'em, as a naybour. . . . O' course 'tis settled we must clear out
from here."

"I don't see it," said Nicky-Nan, pursing his lips.

"Pamphlett's a strong man. What he wants he thinks he's bound to
have--same as these Germans."

"He won't, then: nor they neither."

"Tis a pity about your leg, anyway," said Mr Penhaligon
sympathetically, and stared about the room. "Life's a queer
business," he went on after a pause, his eyes fixed on the old beam
whence the key depended. "To think that I be eatin' the last meal in
this old kitchen. An' yet so many have eaten meals here an' warmed
theirselves in their time. Yet all departed afore us! . . .
But anyway you'll be hereabouts: an' that'll be a cheerin' kind o'
thought, o' lonely nights--that you'll be hereabouts, with your eye
on 'em."

He lit a pipe and