The latter, summing up his old pupil with shrewd blue eye in which there was a hint of battle, refused to discuss the case or his judgment. "What's done is done," he said. "The law's the law and there's no goin back on it. You were lucky to get off so light; that's my notion of it." Alf stood before him, hang-dog and resentful. "He'll kill me one of these days," he muttered. "Little better than a bloody murderer." There was a moment's pause, marked by a snort from Mr. Pigott. Then the jolly, cosy man, with his trim white beard and neat little paunch, rose and opened the window with some ostentation. "First time that word's ever crossed my threshold," he said. "And I've lived in this house ten year come Michaelmas." He turned with dignity on the offender. "Is that what they teach you in the Church of England, then, Alfred Caspar?" he asked. "It wasn't what we taught you in the Wesleyan Chapel in which you was bred. Never heard the like of it for language in all me life--never!" Before everything else in life Mr. Pigott was a strong chapel-man; and in his judgment Ern's weakness was as nothing to Alf's apostasy. Alf looked foolish and deprecatory. "I didn't mean in it the swearin way," he said--"not as Ernest would have meant it. I never been in the Army meself. I only meant he'll be the end o me one of these days. Good as said he would in the _Star_ Saturday." Mr. Pigott turned away to hide the twinkle in his eye. He knew Alf well, and his weakness. "He don't like you, I do believe," he admitted. "And he's a very funny fellow, Ern, when his hackle's up." Alf's eyes blinked as they held the floor. "And now," he said, "I suppose the Watch Committee'll not grant my licence for the Road-Touring Syndicate when it comes up afore em on Thursday. And I'll be a ruined man." "I shouldn't be surprised," answered Mr. Pigott, who was an alderman and a great man on the Town Council. Alf was furious. He was so furious, indeed, that he did a thing he had not done for years: he took his trouble to his mother. "It's a regular plot," he said, "that's what it is. To get my licence stopped and ruin me. Raised the money; ordered the buses; engaged the staff and all. And then they spring this on me!--It ain't Ernie. I will say that for him. I know who's at the bottom of it." "Who then?" asked his mother, faintly interested. "Her Ern keeps." Mrs. Caspar roused instantly. "Isn't she married to him then?" she cried, peering over her spectacles. "Is she?" sneered Alf. "That's all." He leaned forward, his ugly face dreadful with a sneer. "Do you know where she'd be if everyone had his rights?" "Where then?" "Lewes Gaol." His message delivered, he sat back with a nod to watch its effect. "And she would be there too," continued Alf, "only for me." "What do you mean?" Mrs. Caspar asked.