“Pete! oh! he's not far off.” Saying this, Philip interrupted his laughter to distribute sage winks between Nancy Joe and Grannie. Cæsar looked around with a potato half peeled in his fingers. “And the girl--where's Kate?” he asked. “She's not far off neither,” said Philip, still winking vigorously. “But don't trouble about them, Mr. Cregeen. They'll want no supper. They're feeding on sweeter things than herrings even.” Saying this he swallowed a gulp with another laugh. Cæsar lifted his head with a pinch of his herring between finger and thumb half way to his open mouth. “Were you spaking, sir?” he said. At that Philip laughed immoderately. It was a relief to drown with laughter the riot going on within. “Aw, dear, what's agate of the boy?” thought Grannie. “Is it a dog bite that's working on him?” thought Nancy. “Speaking!” cried Philip, “of course I'm speaking. I've come in to do it, Mr. Cregeen--I've come in to speak for Pete. He's fond of your daughter, Cæsar, and wants your good-will to marry her.” “Lord-a-massy!” cried Nancy Joe. “Dear heart alive!” muttered Grannie. “Peter Quilliam!” said Cæsar, “did you say Peter?” “I did, Mr. Cregeen, Peter Quilliam,” said Philip stoutly, “my friend Pete, a rough fellow, perhaps, and without much education, but the best-hearted lad in the island. Come now, Cæsar, say the word, sir, and make the young people happy.” He almost foundered over that last word, but Cæsar kept him up with a searching look. “Why, I picked him out of the streets, as you might say,” said Cæsar. “So you did, Mr. Cregeen, so you did. I always thought you were a discerning man, Cæsar. What do you say, Grannie? It's Cæsar for knowing a deserving lad when he sees one, eh?” He gave another round of his cunning winks, and Grannie replied, “Aw, well, it's nothing against either of them anyway.” Cæsar was gitting as straight as a crowbar and as grim as a gannet. “And when he left me, he gave me imperence and disrespeck.” “But the lad meant no harm, father,” said Grannie; “and hadn't you told him to take to the road?” “Let every bird hatch its own eggs, mother; it'll become you better,” said Cæsar. “Yes, sir, the lip of Satan and the imperence of sin.” “Pete!” cried Philip, in a tone of incredulity; “why, he hasn't a thought about you that isn't out of the Prayer-book.” Cæsar snorted. “No? Then maybe that's where he's going for his curses.” “No curses at all,” said Nancy Joe, from the side of the table, “but a right good lad though, and you've never had another that's been a patch on him.” Cæsar screwed round to her and said severely, “Where there's geese there's dirt, and where there's women there's talking.” Then turning back to Philip, he said in a tone of mock deference, “And may I presume, sir--a little question--being a thing like that's general understood--what's his fortune?” Philip fell back in his chair. “Fortune? Well, I didn't think that you now----”