Two minutes later they were stealing along under cover of the hedge that skirted the field to be irrigated. Arriving at the ridge some distance above the dam they turned to the left, and bending double crept towards the scene of their toil. There, rising erect, they saw Mr. Noakes up to his thighs in the stream, hard at work pulling away stones and earth from the dam. The water was already gurgling through. "Hi there! What the dickens are you up to?" Templeton cried. The man turned with a start, and faced them. He appeared to be undecided what to do. "What are you about?" repeated Templeton, indignantly. "What right have you to destroy our dam?" "What right!" said the man, indignant in his turn. He was still in the water, and, leaning back against the dam, he faced the lads in the misty moonlight. "What right hev you two young fellers, strangers in the parish, to play yer mischeevious pranks here? ’Tis against the law to interfere wi’ the waterways o’ the nation, and the Polstead folk hev their rights, and they’ll stick to ’em. Ay, and I hev my rights, too, and I’m a known man in the parish. This here stream purvides me wi’ washing water, and to-morrow’s washing day. You dam up my water; I can’t wash; that’s where the right do come in." "My dear sir," said Eves, gravely, "however much you want washing, and however much it is to the interest of your neighbours that you should wash, the interests of our food supply, you must admit as a patriotic man, are more important. Wash by all means—to-morrow, when the dam, having done its work, will no doubt be removed. For my part, I have a distinct bias in favour of cleanliness. If a man can’t be decent in other things, let him at least be clean. There was young Barker, now, a wretched little scug who wore his hair long, and always had a high-water mark round his neck. My friend Templeton, of whose ingenuity you have seen proofs, had an excellent invention for an automatic hair-cutter. But I am wandering from the point, which was, in a word, how to be happy though clean——" Eves was becoming breathless. He wondered whether he could hold out. Templeton gazed at him with astonishment; as for Mr. Noakes, he looked angry, puzzled, utterly at sea. Once or twice during Eves’s oratorical performance he opened his mouth to speak, but Eves fixed him with his eyes, and held up a warning hand, and overwhelmed him with his volubility. "Yes, how to be happy though clean," Eves went on; "there’s a text for you. Cleanliness is an acquired taste, like smoking. The mewling infant, with soapsuds in his eyes, rages like the heathen. The schoolboy, panting from his first immersion—my hat!"