So out they went, and down the street side by side, and knocked at the Mayor's door. The Mayor was taking a nap in his back-parlour with a handkerchief over his face. He had left business soon after burying his wife, who had kept him hard at work at the cheese-mongering, and now he could sleep when he chose. But he woke up very politely to attend to his visitors' business. "Yes, for sure, I'll hold the stakes," said he: "and I'll see it put in big print on the Regatta-bill. It ought to attract a lot of visitors. But lor' bless you, Mr. Oke!--if you win, it'll do _me_ no good. She"--meaning his wife--"has gone to a land where I'll never be able to crow over her." "Your Worship makes sure, I see, that we women are going to be beat?" put in Sal. "Tut-tut!" says the Mayor. "They've booked Seth Ede for stroke." And with that he goes very red in the gills and turns to Landlord Oke. "But perhaps I oughtn't to have mentioned that?" says he. "Well," says Sal, "you've a-let the cat out of the bag, and I see that all you men in the town are in league. But a challenge is a challenge, and I mustn't go back on it." Indeed, in her secret heart she was cheerful, knowing the worst, and considering it none so bad: and after higgling a bit, just to deceive him, she took pretty well all the conditions of the race as Oke laid 'em down. A tearing long course it was to be, too, and pretty close on five miles: start from near-abouts where the training-ship lays now, down to a mark-boat somewheres off Torpoint, back, and finish off Saltash Quay. "My dears," she said to her mates later on, "I don't mind telling you I was all of a twitter, first-along, wondering what card that man Oke was holding back--he looked so sly and so sure of hisself. But if he've no better card to play than Seth Ede, we can sleep easy." "Seth Ede's a powerful strong oar," Bess Rablin objected. "_Was_, you mean. He've a-drunk too much beer these four years past to last over a five-mile course; let be that never was his distance. And here's another thing: they've picked Tremenjous Hosken for one th'art." "And he's as strong as a bullock."