While we were looking at the writing, Bill Whitney came in. Some of them thought he had left at Midsummer. Lacketer shook hands; he made much of Whitney, after the fashion of his mind and manners. Old Whitney was a baronet, and Bill would be Sir William sometime: for his elder brother, John, whom we had so much liked, was dead. Bill was good-natured, and divided hampers from home liberally. "_I_ don't know why I am back again," he said, in answer to questions; "you must ask Sir John. I shall be the better for another year or two of it, he says. Who likes grapes?" He was beginning to undo a basket he had brought with him: it was filled with grapes, peaches, plums, and nectarines. Those of us who had plenty of fruit at home did not care to take much; but the others went in for it eagerly. "Our peaches are finer than these, Whitney," cried Vale. Lacketer gave Vale a push. "You big lout, mind your manners!" cried he. "Don't eat the peaches if you don't like 'em." "So they were," said Vale, who never answered offensively. "There! that's enough insolence from _you_." Old Vale was Sir John Whitney's tenant. Of course, according to Lacketer's creed, Vale deserved putting down for only speaking to Whitney. "He is right," said Whitney, who thought no more of being his father's son than he would of being a shopkeeper's. "Mr. Vale's peaches this year were the finest in the county. He sent my mother some, and she said they ought to have gone up to a London fruit-show." "I never saw such peaches as Mr. Vale's," put in Sanker, talking at Lacketer, and not kindly. "And the flavour was as good as the look. Mrs. Frost enjoyed those peaches to the last: it was almost the only thing she took." Vale's face shone. "We shall always be glad at home that they were so good this year, for her sake." Altogether, Lacketer was shut up. He stood over Whitney, who was undoing a small desk he had brought. Amidst the things, that lay on the ledge inside, was a thin, yellow, old-fashioned-looking coin. "It's a guinea," said Bill Whitney. "I mean to have a hole bored in it and wear it to my watch-chain." "I'd lock it up safely until then, Whitney," burst forth Snepp, who came from Alcester. "Or it may go after the things that were lost last half-year." Turning to glance at Sanker, I found he had left the room. Whitney was balancing the guinea on his finger. "Fore-warned, fore-armed, Snepp," he said. "Who the thief was, I can't think; but I advise him not to begin his game again." "Talking of warning, I should like to give one on my own score," said Tod. "By-gones may be by-gones; I don't wish to recur to them; but if I lose anything this half and can find the thief, I'll put him into the river." "What, to drown him?" "To duck him. I'll do it as sure as my name's Todhetley."