lf. What
business of yours has he poked his nose into? Was it the carpet?"

"No. I told you he had nothing to do with the carpet. He made a
beastly fuss about my fishing in the river above the bridge. He
threatened to prosecute me."

"He may have been perfectly justified in that," said Meldon. "What
right have you to fish in the upper part of the river?"

"I always fished there. I've fished there for thirty years and more."

"These questions of fishing rights," said Meldon, "are often extremely
complicated. There may very well be something to be said on both
sides. I don't think I can proceed to deal with Simpkins in the way
you suggest, unless he has done something worse than interfere with
your fishing. What else have you got against him?"

"He tried to stir up the dispensary doctor to prosecute Doyle on
account of the insanitary condition of some of his houses."

"I expect he was perfectly right there," said Meldon. "From what I
recollect of those houses that Doyle lets I should say that he richly
deserves prosecution."

"Nobody was ever ill in the houses," said the Major. "There hasn't
been a case of typhoid in the town as long as I can remember."

"That's not the point," said Meldon. "You're looking at the matter in
the wrong way altogether. There never is typhoid anywhere until you
begin to be sanitary. The absence of typhoid simply goes to show that
sanitation has been entirely neglected. That's probably one of
Simpkins' strongest points."

"If that's so, we'd be better without sanitation."

"Certainly not," said Meldon. "You might just as well say that we'd be
better without matches because children never died of eating the heads
off them before they were invented. Which reminds me that I caught the
baby in the act of trying to swallow a black-headed pin the other day;
and that, of course, would have been a great deal worse than getting
whooping-cough. The thing had been stuck into the head of a woolly
bear by way of an eye. She pulled it out, which I think shows
intelligence, and--"

"I thought you said, J. J., that you wanted to get through with this
enquiry and go to bed."

"I do," said Meldon. "But I naturally expected you'd take some
interest in the mental development of my baby. After all, she's your
godchild. You wouldn't have liked it if she'd swallowed that pin.
However, if you don't care to hear about her, I won't force her on your
attention. Go on about Doyle and