“Never heard anyone so called before. Brambles, and Bramptons, and Branscombes. It don’t sound English to our ears. I may as well tell you--sit down, and take a fork--that we liked our last schoolmaster uncommon much. He was just the right sort of man for us; but the rector took against him.” “I thought he was rather given to the”-- “Well, what of that? We have, all of us, our failings. A trout is an uncommon good fish, but it has bones like needles. You have your failings, my wife has hers. I will say this for Mr. Solomon Puddicombe--he never got tight in our parish. When he was out for a spree, he went elsewhere--to Newton, or Teignmouth, and sometimes to Ashburton. He couldn’t help it. Some folks have fits, others have bilious attacks. When he wasn’t bad, he was very good; the children liked him, the parents liked him. I liked him, and I’m the churchwarden. He had means of his own, beside the school pence and his salary. A man has a right to spend his money as he chooses. If he had got tight on the school pence, I can understand that there might have been some kind of objection; but when it was on his private means, then I don’t see that we have anything to do with it. Have you means of your own?” “I am sorry to say--none.” “We always respect those who have means. If you have none, of course you can’t go on the spree anywhere, and oughtn’t to do so. It would be wrong and immoral. Take my advice, and call on the old schoolmaster. The parish will be pleased, as it has been terribly put about at the rector giving him his dismissal.” “But--I thought there had been an unhappy scandal; that, in fact, he had been committed to”-- “Well, well, he was locked up,” said Pasco. “There was a cock-fight somewhere up country. Not in this country, but at a place called Waterloo.” “There is no such place in England,” said Bramber. “Waterloo is in Belgium; it lies about five miles from Brussels.” “You are a schoolmaster, and ought to know. But of this I am quite sure--it was in England where he got into trouble, and the name of the place was Waterloo.” “He may have been at some inn called the Waterloo, but positively there is no place in England so designated,” said Bramber. “I know very well the place was Waterloo, and that Mr. Solomon Puddicombe got into trouble there. We are all liable to troubles. I have lost my daughter. Troubles are sent us; the parson himself has said so. Puddicombe got locked up. You see, cock-fighting is a pursuit to which he was always very partial. You go and call on him, and he’ll sing you his song. It begins-- ‘Come all you cock-fighters from far and near, I’ll sing you a cock match when and where, On Aspren Moor, as I’ve heard say, A charcoal black and a bonny bonny grey.’