His part in the drama was taken a couple of hours later by a Registrar of the Naval Reserve at a grimy Welsh seaport, who was also the Assistant Collector of Customs and a deacon at the local chapel; he, at the bidding of a curt telegram, pumped up the back tyre of his bicycle and rode some three miles along a cobbled thoroughfare, till he came to a row of cottages that stared across an evil-looking canal at mounds of slag. He dismounted at the door of the third house and knocked. An old woman answered the summons, wiping her hands on her apron. "Mrs. Jones?" "Aye," said the old woman. "Have they found 'im?" "They have," said the registrar grimly. "An' buryin' him they are to-morrow." The old woman sat down in a chair and threw her apron over her head. "Anwl!" she wailed. "Anwl, Anwl! Seven year since I set eyes on 'im, an' then he did hit me a clout and went foreign--drinkin' he'd been... _Dhu_! _Dhu_! And me his mother." The registrar entered the squalid room, drew a chair up beside the old woman, and, sitting down, prepared to enjoy himself. "The _Ard_-miralty," he began sonorously, unfolding the telegram and clearing his throat; "the Ard-miralty, look you, gives me authority to pay your fare to the East Coast of England so's you can be present at the funeral, Mrs. Jones." Then, his voice rising to the triumphal mournful "_hoeul_"* of the Welsh preacher, he added, "Are not two sparrows sold for one farthing----!" * A sort of sing-song chanty. The old woman ceased to rock herself to and fro. Her head emerged from under her apron. "Maggie Ann!" she cried shrilly. A slovenly girl, with a sallow face, and masses of untidy hair twisted up in curl papers, crossed the yard at the back, and stood in the doorway. "Get you out my black dress an' my red flannel petticoat, Maggie Ann." The registrar eyed the girl sternly. "Have you got a black dress too?" he inquired. "I have indeed," replied Maggie Ann simply. "In the pawnshop, it is." The registrar consulted the telegram as if it contained directions as to the method of redeeming articles from pawn. "I am authorised by the Ard-miralty to issue two tickets to the next of kin of the deceased." He cleared his throat and contemplated Maggie Ann. "I am prepared to give you one so's you can go to the funeral too." "There's my married sister," said Maggie Ann reflectively, "with a black dress as would fit me----" "Get it you from her," commanded the registrar majestically. "An' be at the station at 4 o'clock. I will find a train for you." His manner suggested that trains were things that took even a man a good deal of finding.