trickly speakin', mind you"--Billy took his friend by
the button-hole--"strickly speakin' I'd the right on my side. 'Let the
best man win' was our agreement. But you needn' to fret yourself: _I_
ben't the man to take an advantage of an old friend, fair though it be.
Man, I ha'n't been to Ardevora--I turned back. So finish your beer and
come'st along with me, and we'll walk down to Selina Johns together and
ask her which of us she'll choose, fair and square."

Abe set down his mug and looked up, studying the signboard over the
door.

"Well," says he, "'tis a real relief to my mind to know you've played so
fair. For man and boy, Bill, I always thought it of you."

"Yes, indeed," says Billy, "man and boy, it always was my motto."

"But as consarnin' Selina Johns," Abe went on, "there ain't no such
woman."

"You don't tell me she's dead!"

"No; 'tis her first husband that's dead. She's Selina Widlake now."

"How long have 'ee knowed that?"

"Maybe an hour, maybe only three-quarters. Her name's Selina Widlake,
and she owns this here public. What's more, her name isn't going to be
Selina Widlake, but Selina Cummins. We've fixed it up, and she's to
leave Nancledrea and take the Welcome Home over to Ardevora."

Billy Bosistow took a turn across the road, and, coming back, stuck his
hands in his pockets and stared up at the sign overhead.

"Well! And I, that was too honourable--" he began.

"So you was," agreed Abe, pulling out his pipe. "You can't think what a
comfort that is to me. But, as it turns out, 'twouldn't have made no
difference. For she see'd you last evenin', and she was tellin' me just
now that prison hadn't improved you. In fact she didn't like either
your looks or your behaviour."

I've heard that he was just in time to pop inside and bolt the door
after him. And now you know why Billy Bosistow and Abe Cummins could
never bear the sight of each other from that day. But there! you can't
be first and last too, as the saying is.

[1] Givet in the Ardennes. The river, of course, is the Meuse.

[2] Probably Briancon in the Hautes Alpes.

[3] Performers in a Christmas Play.

A TOWN'S MEMORY

A PENDANT TO THE FOREGOING

The returned Emigrant was not one of those who sometimes creep back to
Tregarrick and scan the folk wistfully and the names over the shops till
they bethink themselves of stepping up the hill to take a look at the
cemetery, and there find all they sought. This