a shirt that hasn't
been double-aired I always know what's going to happen: it'll be
lumbago next day to a certainty. But maybe, as travellers, you're
not so susceptible. I find hotel-keepers so careless with their damp
sheets! May I ask, gentlemen, if you've come from far? You'll be
bound for Falmouth, as I guess: and so am I. You'll find much on the
way to admire. But perhaps this is not your first visit to
Cornwall?"

In this fashion she was rattling away, good soul--settling her wraps
about her and scarcely drawing breath--when Bligh slewed himself
around in his seat, and for answer treated her to a long stare.

Now, Bligh wasn't a beauty at the best of times, and he carried a
scar on his cheek that didn't improve matters by turning white when
his face was red, and red when his face was white. They say the King
stepped up to him at Court once and asked him how he came by it and
in what action. Bligh had to tell the truth--that he'd got it in the
orchard at home: he and his father were trying to catch a horse
there: the old man flung a hatchet to turn the horse and hit his boy
in the face, marking him for life. Hastiness, you see, in the
family.

Well, the sight of his face, glowering back on her over his shoulder,
was enough to dry up the speech in Mrs. Polwhele or any woman.
But Bligh, it seems, couldn't be content with this. After withering
the poor soul for ten seconds or so, he takes his eyes off her, turns
to his friend again in a lazy, insolent way, and begins to talk loud
to him in French.

'Twas a terrible unmannerly thing to do for a fellow supposed to be a
gentleman. I've naught to say against modern languages: but when I
see it on the newspaper nowadays that naval officers ought to give
what's called "increased attention" to French and German, I hope that
they'll use it bettern than Bligh, that's all! Why, Sir, my eldest
daughter threw up a situation as parlour-maid in London because her
master and mistress pitched to parleyvooing whenever they wanted to
talk secrets at table. "If you please, Ma'am," she told the lady,
"you're mistaking me for the governess and I never could abide
compliments." She gave a month's warning then and there, and I
commend the girl's spirit.

But the awkward thing for Bligh, as it turned out, was that Mrs.
Polwhele didn't understand his insolence. Being a woman that
wouldn't hurt a fly if she could help it, and coming from a parish
where every man, her