“Fort Road,” said Hardy; “come round any evening you can, if you won’t come now.” Nugent promised, and, catching sight of Miss Kybird standing in the doorway of the shop, bade him good-bye and crossed the road. It was becoming quite a regular thing for her to wait and have her tea with him now, an arrangement which was provocative of many sly remarks on the part of Mrs. Kybird. “Thought you were never coming,” said Miss Kybird, tartly, as she led the way to the back room and took her seat at the untidy tea-tray. “And you’ve been crying your eyes out, I suppose,” remarked Mr. Nugent, as he groped in the depths of a tall jar for black-currant jam. “Well, you’re not the first, and I don’t suppose you’ll be the last. How’s Teddy?” “Get your tea,” retorted Miss Kybird, “and don’t make that scraping noise on the bottom of the jar with your knife. It puts my teeth on edge.” “So it does mine,” said Mr. Nugent, “but there’s a black currant down there, and I mean to have it. ‘Waste not, want not.’” [Illustration: “Miss Kybird standing in the doorway of the shop.”] “Make him put that knife down,” said Miss Kybird, as her mother entered the room. Mrs. Kybird shook her head at him. “You two are always quarrelling,” she said, archly, “just like a couple of—couple of——” “Love-birds,” suggested Mr. Nugent. Mrs. Kybird in great glee squeezed round to him and smote him playfully with her large, fat hand, and then, being somewhat out of breath with the exertion, sat down to enjoy the jest in comfort. “That’s how you encourage him,” said her daughter; “no wonder he doesn’t behave. No wonder he acts as if the whole place belongs to him.” The remark was certainly descriptive of Mr. Nugent’s behaviour. His easy assurance and affability had already made him a prime favourite with Mrs. Kybird, and had not been without its effect upon her daughter. The constrained and severe company manners of Mr. Edward Silk showed up but poorly beside those of the paying guest, and Miss Kybird had on several occasions drawn comparisons which would have rendered both gentlemen uneasy if they had known of them. Mr. Nugent carried the same easy good-fellowship with him the following week when, neatly attired in a second-hand suit from Mr. Kybird’s extensive stock, he paid a visit to Jem Hardy to talk over old times and discuss the future. “You ought to make friends with your father,” said the latter; “it only wants a little common sense and mutual forbearance.” “That’s all,” said Nugent; “sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? No, all he wants is for me to clear out of Sunwich, and I’m not going to—until it pleases me, at any rate. It’s poison to him for me to be living at the Kybirds’ and pushing a trolley down on the quay. Talk about love sweetening toil, that does.”