ten is a sneak, and looks it.' 'Because,'
retorted the doctor, but gently, 'your smuggler lives in his own
cottage, serves no master, and has public opinion--by which I mean
the only public opinion he knows, that of his neighbours--to back
him; whereas your poacher lives by day in affected subservience to
the landowner he robs by night, and because you take good care that
public opinion is against him.' 'To be sure I do,' affirmed Mr
Trelawny, and would have continued the argument, but here old Squire
Morshead struck in and damned the Government for its new coastguard
service. 'I don't deny,' he said, 'it's an improvement on anything
we've seen yet under the Customs, or would be, if there was any real
smuggling left to grapple with. But the "trade" has been dwindling
now for these thirty years, and to invent this fire-new service to
suppress what's dying of its own accord is an infernal waste of
public money.' 'I doubt,' Sir John demurred, 'if smuggling be quite
so near death's door as you fancy. Hey, doctor--in Polpeor now?'
The doctor opined that very little smuggling survived nowadays; the
profits were not worth the risk. 'Though, to be sure,' he added,
'public opinion in Polpeor is still with the trade. For an
illustration, not a soul in the town will let the new coast-guardsmen
a house to live in, and I hear the Government intends to send down a
hulk from Plymouth Dock and moor it alongside the quay.' He paused.
'But,' he went on, with a glance over his spectacles at Sir John,
'our host, who owns two-thirds of the cottages in Polpeor, may
correct me and say that Government never offered a fair rent?'
Sir John threw back his head and laughed. 'My heir, when he succeeds
me,' he said, 'may start new industries in Polpeor; but I'll not
build new houses to worry my sitting tenants.'

It was now eleven o'clock, and by-and-by the company dispersed--which
they did almost simultaneously and from the stable-yard, amid a
tremendous clattering of hoofs, rumbling of wheels, calls of
stablemen, 'gee's' and 'woa's,' buttoning of overcoats, wrapping of
throats in comforters, 'good-nights,' and invitations to meet again.
Sir John himself moved up and down in the throng, speeding his
parting guests, criticising their horseflesh, offering an extra wrap
to one, assuring himself that another had his pocket-flask charged
for a long night ride.

In the press Doctor Unonius--whether because he never stinted a vail
to the gr