“I ought to; I were born here. Father were born here. Know it? I wish I know’d as well how to make my own fortin’.” “And yet they tell me,” observed the other, watching him slily, “that William Jones of Abertaw has money in the bank, and is a rich man!” He saw William’s colour change at once, but recovering himself at once, the worthy gave a contemptuous grunt, and aimed a stone spitefully at a large gull which just then floated slowly by. “Who told you _that?_” he asked, glancing quickly up, and then looking down again. “Some tomfool, wi’ no more sense in un than that gull. Rich? I wish I was, I do!” Brinkley was amused, and a little curious. Laughing gaily, he threw himself down by William’s side. William shifted his seat uneasily, and threw another stone. “My dear Mr. Jones,” said the young man, assuming the flippant style which Matt found so irritating, “I have often wondered how you get your living.” William started nervously. “You are, I believe, a fisherman by profession; yet you never go fishing. You possess a boat, but you are seldom seen to use it. You are not, I think, of a poetical disposition; yet you spend your days in watching the water, like a poet, or a person in love. I conclude, very reluctantly, that your old habits stick to you, and that you speculate on the disasters of your fellow creatures.” “What d’ye mean, master?” grunted William, puzzled and a little alarmed by this style of address. “A nice wreck, now, would admirably suit your tastes? A well-laden Indiaman, smashing up on the reef-yonder, would lend sunshine to your existence, and deepen your faith in a paternal Providence? Eh, Mr. Jones?” “I don’t know nowt about no wrecks,” was the reply. “They’re no consarn o’ mine.” “Ah, but I have heard you lament the good old times, when wrecking was a respectable occupation, and when there were no impertinent coastguards to interfere with respectable followers of the business. By the way, I have often wondered, Mr. Jones, if popular report is true, and if, among these cliffs or the surrounding sand-hills, there is buried treasure, cast up from time to time by the sea, and concealed by energetic persons like yourself?” William Jones could stand this no longer. Looking as pale as it was possible for so rubicund a person to become, and glancing round him suspiciously, he rose to his feet, “I know nowt o’ that,” he said. “If there _is_ summat, I wish I could find it; but sech things never come the way of honest chaps like me. Good mornin’, master! Take a poor man’s advice, and don’t you go swimming no more near the Devil’s Cauldron!”