On each side of the path, banked up to the height of about three feet, was a further indescribable conglomeration of bric-à-brac, cemented together into a sort of hedge. The general effect was as if the knock-about comedians of a music-hall stage (who break plates and domestic crockery out of sheer joy of living) had combined with demented graveyard masons, bulls in china shops, and all the craftsmen of Murano, to produce a nightmare. A light summer breeze strayed down the valley, and scores of slips of coloured glass, hanging in groups from the apple-trees, responded with a musical tinkling. The sound brought recollections of a Japanese temple garden, and Selby paused to look about him. "What an extraordinary place!" The vicar, leading the way up the tiled walk, seemed suddenly to become aware of the strangeness of their surroundings. Long familiarity with the house had perhaps robbed the fantastic decorations of their incongruity. He stopped and smiled. "To be sure.... Yes, I had forgotten; to a stranger all this must seem very peculiar. I think I hinted that the old man had very curious ideas of beautifying the home. This was about his only hobby—and yet, oddly enough, he rarely spoke of it to me." At that moment the cottage door opened and a tall florid man came out. The vicar turned. "Ah, Doctor Williams—that was his trap at the gate—let me introduce you...." The introduction accomplished, he inquired after the patient. The medical man shook his head. "Won’t last much longer, I’m afraid: a day or so at the most. No organic disease, y’know, but just"—he made a little gesture—"like a clock that’s run down. Not an old man either, as men go. But these Navy men age so quickly.... Well, I must get along. I shall look in again this evening, but there is nothing one can do, really. He’s quite comfortable.... Good-morning," and the Doctor passed down the path to his trap. The vicar opened the cottage door, and stood aside to allow Selby to enter. The room was partly a kitchen, partly a bedroom; occupying the bed, with a patchwork quilt drawn up under his chin, was a shrunken little old man, with a square beard nearly white, and projecting craggy eyebrows. He turned his head to the door as they entered; in spite of the commanding brows they were dull, tired old eyes, without interest or hope, or curiosity in them. "I’ve brought you a visitor, Mr Tyelake," said the vicar. "Some one you’ll be glad to see: an Officer in the Navy." The old man considered Selby with the same vacant, passionless gaze. "Have you ever ate Navy beef?" he asked abruptly. It was a thin colourless voice, almost the falsetto of the very old. Selby smiled. "Oh yes, sometimes." "Navy beef—that’s what brought me here—an’ the rheumatics. I’m dyin’." He made the statement with the simple pride of one who has at last achieved a modest distinction.