"I beg your pardon?" the Collector repeated slowly. "He 'sends word,' do you say? I had not the honour at my Inn--from which I have ridden straight--to be notified of Mr. Wapshott's indisposition." Mr. Banner attempted a weak grin and harked back again to familiarity. "No, I guess not. The fact is--" "Excuse me; but would you mind taking your hands out of your pockets?" "Oh, come! Why?" But none the less Mr. Banner removed them. "Thank you. You were saying?" "Well, I guess, between you and me"--Mr. Banner's hands were slipping to his pockets again but he checked the motion and rested a palm nonchalantly on either hip--"the old man was a bit too God-fearing to sign to it." "You mean," the Collector asked slowly, "that he is not, in fact, unwell, but has asked you to convey an untruth?" "You've a downright way of putting it--er--sir" Mr. Banner confessed; "but you get near enough, I shouldn't wonder. You see, the old--the Surveyor is strict upon Lord's Day Observance." The Collector bent his brows slightly while he smoothed Bayard's mane. Of a sudden the small scene by the Church porch recurred to him. "Stay," he said. "I have not the pleasure of knowing Mr. Wapshott, but may I attempt to describe him to you? He is, perhaps, a gentleman of somewhat stunted growth, but of full habit, and somewhat noticeably red between the ear and the neck-stock?" "That hits him." "--with a wife inclining to portliness and six grown daughters, taller than their parents and not precisely in their first bloom. I speak," added the Collector, still eyeing his victim, "as to a man of the world." "You've seen him anyhow," Mr. Banner nodded. "That's Wapshott." "I saw him entering his place of worship; and I note that he thinks what you call the Lord's Day well worth keeping at the cost of a falsehood. May I ask, Mr.--" The Collector hesitated. "Banner." "Ah, yes--pardon me! May I ask, Mr. Banner, how it comes that you have a nicer sense than your superior of what is due to His Majesty's Service?" Mr. Banner laughed uneasily. "Well, you mightn't guess it from my looks," he answered with an attempt to ingratiate himself by way of self-deprecation, "but I am pretty good at working out levels. I really am." "That was not my point, though I shall test you on it presently. You are, it appears, a somewhat less rigid Sabbatarian than Mr. Wapshott?" Hereupon Mr. Banner became cryptic. "You needn't fear about that," he answered. "I have what they call a dispensation; and until you startled me, I was up here keeping the Lord's Day as well as the best of 'em. Better, perhaps." "We will get to business," said the Collector. "Follow me, please."