"I shall certainly go when I choose," Captain Polkington retorted; "I
should like to know what is to prevent me and why I should not?"

Julia remembered his dignity. "Shall we say because it is too far?"
she suggested.

After that she dismissed the subject; she did not see any need to
pursue it further; her father knew her wishes--commands, perhaps, he
called them--all that was left for her to do was to see that he could
not help fulfilling them, and that was not to be done by much talking
any more than by little. So she made no further comments on his doings
and, to change the subject, told him she had bought some whisky in the
town yesterday and he had better open the bottle at dinner time.

The Captain stared for a moment, but quickly recovered from his
astonishment, though not because he recognised that a little whisky at
home was part of a judicious system. He merely thought that his
daughter was going to treat him properly after all, and in spite of
what had been lately said. This idea was a little modified when he
found that, though he drank the whisky, Julia kept the bottle under
lock and key.

It also seemed that she found a way of enforcing her wishes, or at
least preventing frequent transgressions of them, although, of course,
she was prepared for occasional mishaps. There really was nothing at
the "Dog and Pheasant" that the Captain could put up with even if he
had not been always very short of money--absurdly short even of
coppers--and Julia saw that he was short. There remained nothing for
him but the hospitality of acquaintances, and they did not abound in
Halgrave, the only place within reach; also, as he declared, they were
a stingy lot. The next time he called upon his new friend, the
veterinary surgeon, he was at a loss to understand this; it was unlike
his previous experience of the man and most disagreeably surprising;
he could not think why it should happen. But then he had not seen
Julia set out for Halgrave on the afternoon of the same day that she
explained things to him. She had on all her best clothes, even her
best boots, in spite of the bad roads. She looked trim and dainty as
a Frenchwoman, but there was something about her which suggested
business.

There are, no doubt, advantages attached to the simple life. It is
decidedly easier to deal with your drawback when you do not have to
pretend it has no existence. You can enlist help from outside if you
can go boldly to veterinary surg