The latter drove in now, in her smart, new milk-float, affecting the farmer’s jog-trot which would soon ruin the brisk little cob he had bought for her, he reflected, with a shrug. She had Wiggie with her, and threw him the reins while she made the pilgrimage from the Bank to the “Duke.” Wiggie knew nothing about horses, but he would have held a megalosaurus if Harriet had commanded, so hung on and murmured all the horse songs he could think of, from “The Tin Gee-Gee” to “The Arab’s Farewell to his Favourite Steed.” She scowled when Lancaster and the clerk got up as she entered, and the former offered her a chair. She resented their reception of her as a lady rather than as a rent-paying tenant, and her ploughboy manner was particularly evident upon these occasions. Perhaps, in spite of her strenuous pose, the pilgrimage, ending at Lancaster’s table, hurt something of her hidden woman’s pride. In any case she needed to carry a high head for Stubbs, who marked the day with a white stone. He always insisted upon attending the dinner with Harriet’s ticket, and the result, if customary, was none the less galling. She refused the seat, flipping the bank voucher across the table, and thrusting the estate receipt into an important-looking pocket-book; then, remembering her part, sat down sideways and dug her hands into her pockets. “What about that pig-hull you promised me?” she demanded, in a Judge Jeffreys tone that made the clerk jump. Lanty temporised solemnly, with the tactful evasiveness of custom. He knew quite well that she had only said it to impress his subordinate, because the pig-hull had been granted at least a week before, but he wouldn’t for worlds have denied her the traditional privilege of the punctual tenant, which was in this case no more than just a little bit of side. “I see you’ve Wigmore with you,” he added, looking out to where that unhappy gentleman, to the tune of “Come, pretty bird, and live with me!” was trying to persuade the cob that the bar-parlour of the “Duke” was not the mouth of his private stable. “We’ve been to see the Vicar--Bluecaster, I mean--so I brought him on. The choral has been asked to oblige with ‘Elijah,’ sometime in March, in aid of missions over the seas and kindred objects. Would you consider Stubbs, half-seas-over, a kindred object? Wiggie happened to say he knew something about the music, so I told him he could sing. He hung back a bit at first, but I wasn’t standing any nonsense. Mind you turn up with plenty of cash. By the way, there’s that match with Bortun to-morrow.” (Hockey understood.) “You’ll be pig-and-whistle as usual, of course? I’ve got some sort of a team scratched together, but I’m still short of a centre-half. I expect I’ll have to play there myself, unless _you_’ll take it on?” “Too old!” Lanty shook his head. “Is Wigmore training for a circus, by any chance?”