r Abbey. Among his pall-bearers walked the Prime Minister,
the Commander-in-Chief, the President of the Royal Academy of Arts,
and (as representing rural life) the Chief Secretary of Foreign
Affairs.

What else disturbed the placid current of Master Simon's cogitations?
Why, this: he was the last of his race, and unmarried.

For himself, he had no inclination to marry. But sometimes, as he
shaved his chin of a morning, the reflection in his round mirror
would suggest another. Was he not neglecting a public duty?

Now there dwelt down at Ponteglos a Mistress Prudence Waddilove, a
widow, who kept the "Pandora's Box" Inn on the quay--a very tidy
business. Master Simon had known her long before she married the
late Waddilove; had indeed sat on the same form with her in
infants' school--she being by two years his junior, but always a
trifle quicker of wit. He attended her husband's funeral in a
neighbourly way, and, a week later, put on his black suit again and
went down--still in a neighbourly way--to offer his condolence.
Mistress Prudence received him in the best parlour, which smelt damp
and chilly in comparison with the little room behind the bar.
Master Simon remarked that she must be finding it lonely.
Whereupon she wept.

Master Simon suggested that he, for his part, had tried
pigeon-breeding, and found that it alleviated solitude in a wonderful
manner. "There's my tumblers. If you like, I'll bring you down a
pair. They're pretty to watch. Of course, a husband is different--"

"Of course," Mistress Prudence assented, her grief too recent to
allow a smile even at the picture of the late Waddilove (a man of
full habit) cleaving the air with frequent somersaults. She added,
not quite inconsequently:

"He is an angel."

"Of course," said Master Simon, in his turn.

"But I think," she went on, quite inconsequently, "I would rather
have a pair of carriers."

"Now, why in the world?" wondered Master Simon. He kept carrier
pigeons, to be sure. He kept pigeons of every sort--tumblers,
pouters, carriers, Belgians, dragons . . . the subdivisions, when you
came to them, were endless. But the carriers were by no means his
show-birds. He kept them mainly for the convenience of Ann the cook.
Ann had a cunning eye for a pigeon, and sometimes ventured a trifle
of her savings on a match; and though in his masculine pride he never
consulted her, Master Simon always felt more confident on hearing
that Ann had