The case came on at Bodmin, and the Mayor was cast in damages, twenty-five pounds. He paid, of course, though with a very long face. But Billy's revenge didn't stop here. Instead of putting the money by, the old varmint laid it out in the best way he could to annoy his enemy. And the way he contrived it was this. Every free Saturday he'd put a sovereign in his pocket, and start the round of the public-houses-- always beginning with Cummins's own house, the Welcome Home. Cummins, you see, couldn't refuse to serve him: the law wouldn't allow it. So he'd pull out a brand new sovereign and slap it on the counter and eye it. "Ah!" he'd say, "it was a dear friend gave me that there coin. His heart's in the right place, which is more'n can be said for his calves. Two-pennyworth of gin, please, your Worship." The Mayor's dignity wouldn't let him serve it, so, the first day, he called his wife down. Mrs. Cummins began by trying argument. "William," she said, "the Lord knows you wouldn't have this money if there was justice in England. But got it you have, and now be a sensible man and put it by for a rainy day." "Mrs. Mayor," answers Billy, slow and vicious, "if there was any chance of presentin' you with a silver cradle, I'd save it up and subscribe." After that there was nothing more to say. It hurt the poor soul terrible, and she went upstairs again and cried as she went. Billy sat on and soaked, and the Mayor, across the counter, sat and watched his condition, quiet-like, till the time came for refusing any more liquor and turning him out. When that happened the old sinner would gather up his change and make off for another public. And the end was that he'd be up before the Mayor on Monday morning, charged with drunkenness. No use to fine him; he wouldn't pay, but went to gaol instead. "Ten years was I in prison," he'd say, addressing the bench, "along with his Worship there. I don't know what 'twould appear to him who came back and got the Welcome Home; but I didn't, and ten days don't frighten me." Landlord Cummins would listen to this, looking as unnatural as a blue china cat in a thunderstorm. He fairly hated these appearances of Billy, and they spoiled his term of office, I do believe. But all the same he turned out a very passable Mayor. The townsfolk respected him so highly, I've heard my mother say, that they made him Ex-Mayor the year following. Now you'll be wanting to know what made these two men hate each other, for friends they had been, as two men ought to be who had been taken prisoners together and spent ten years in captivity to the French, and come home aboard the same ship like brothers. The bigger the love the bigger the hate, and no difficulty to guess there was a woman in the case. So there was; but the way she came between them was curious, for all that.