"Eight o'clock: to settle up details--mark-boats, handicap, and the like. . . . It's a wonder to me," said Cai reflectively, "how this regatta has run on, year after year. With Bussa for secretary, if you can understand such madness." "They'll be runnin' you for the next Parish Council, sure as fate." Cai ignored this. "There's the fireworks, too. Nobody chosen yet to superintend 'em, an' who's to do it I don't know, unless I take over that little job in addition." "I thought the firm always sent a couple o' hands to fix an let 'em off." "So it does. They arrived a couple of hours ago--both drunk as Chloe." "Plenty o' time to sleep it off between this an' then," opined 'Bias comfortably. "But they're still _on_ the drink. Likely as not we shall find 'em to-morrow in Highway lock-up, which is four miles from here. . . . It happened once before," said Cai with a face of gloom, "and Bussa did the whole display by himself." "Good Lord! How did it go off?" "He can't remember, except that it _did_ go off. _He_ was drunk, too-- drunk o' purpose: for, as he says very reas'nably, 'twas the only way he could find the courage. The fellow isn' without public spirit, if he'd only apply it the right way. Toy tells me that he, for his part, saw it from his bedroom window--the Town Quay wasn't safe, wi' the rocket-sticks fairly rainin'--an' the show wasn' a bad show, _if you looked at it horizontal_; but the gentry on the yachts derived next to no enjoyment from it, bein' occupied in gettin' up their anchors." Before 'Bias could comment on this, a footstep--light, yet audible between the tinkling notes of the musical box--drew the gaze of the pair to a small window on the right, outside of which lay the gravelled approach to their bower. "May I come in?" asked a voice--a woman's--with a pretty hesitation in its note: and Mrs Bosenna stood in the doorway. "_Please_ keep your seats," she entreated as both arose awkwardly. She added with a mirthful little laugh, "I heard the musical box playing away, and so I took French leave. Now, don't tell me that I'm an intruder! It is only for a few minutes; and--strictly speaking, you know--the lease says I may enter at any reasonable time. Is this a reasonable time?" They assured her, but still awkwardly, that she was welcome at any time. Captain Cai found her a chair. "So this," she said, looking around, "is where you sit together and talk disparagingly of our sex. At least, that's what Dinah assures me, though I don't see how she can possibly know." "Ma'am!" said Cai, "we were talkin', this very moment, o' fireworks: nothing more an' nothing less." "Well, and you couldn't have been talking of anything more to the point," said Mrs Bosenna; "for, as it happens, it's fireworks that brought me here." 'Bias looked vaguely skyward, while "You don't tell me, ma'am, those fellows are making trouble down in the town?" cried Cai.