‘My dear Will,’ said Watchman delicately, ‘I don’t dispute it for a moment. I think Mr Legge has done remarkably well for himself, in ten months.’

Will’s face was scarlet under his thatch of fox-coloured hair. He moved forward and confronted Watchman, his tankard clenched in a great ham of a fist, his feet planted apart.

‘Shut up, now, Luke,’ said Sebastian Parish softly, and Cubitt murmured, ‘don’t heckle, Luke, you’re on a holiday.’

‘See here, Mr Watchman,’ said Will, ‘you can afford to sneer, can’t you, but I’d like to know—’

‘Will!’ Old Abel slapped the bar with an open hand. ‘That’s enough. You’m a grown chap, not a lad, and what’s more, the son of this house. Seems like I ought to give’ee light draught and lemonade till you learn to take a man’s pint like a man. If you can’t talk politics and hold your temper then you’ll not talk politics at all. ‘Be a job for you in Public here. ‘Tend it.’

‘I’m sorry, Will,’ said Watchman. ‘Mr Legge is fortunate in his friend.’

Will Pomeroy stood and looked under his brows from Watchman to Legge. Legge shrugged his shoulders, muttered something about moving into the public bar, and went out. Will turned on Watchman.

‘There’s something behind all this,’ he said. ‘I want to know what the game is, Mr Watchman, and damme, I’m going to find out.’

‘Did I hear something about a game?’ said a woman’s voice. They all turned to look at the doorway. There they saw a short fat figure clad in a purple tweed skirt and a green jersey.

‘May I come in?’ asked the Hon. Violet Darragh.

III

Miss Darragh’s entrance broke up the scene. Will Pomeroy turned, ducked under the flap of the private bar, and leant over the counter into the Public. Watchman stood up. The others turned to Miss Darragh with an air of relief, and Abel Pomeroy, with his innkeeper’s heartiness, intensified perhaps by a feeling of genuine relief, said loudly, ‘Come in then, Miss, company’s waiting for you and you’m in time for a drink, with the house.’

‘Not Treble Extra, Mr Pomeroy, if you don’t mind. Sherry for me, if you please.’

She waddled over to the bar, placed her hands on the counter, and with an agility that astonished Watchman, made a neat little vault on to one of the tall stools. There she sat beaming upon the company.

She was a woman of perhaps fifty, but it would have been difficult to guess at her age since time had added to her countenance and figure merely layer after layer of firm wholesome fat. She was roundabout and compact. Her face was babyish, and this impression was heightened by the tight grey curls that covered her head. In repose she seemed to pout, and it was not until she spoke that her good humour appeared in her eyes, and was magnified by her spectacles. All fat people wear a look of inscrutability, and Violet Darragh was not unlike a jolly sort of sphinx.