E-text prepared by Lionel Sear THE MAYOR OF TROY. by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch. 1906 This e-text prepared from a reprint of a version published in 1906. TO MY FRIEND KENNETH GRAHAM AND THE REST OF THE CREW OF THE "RICHARD AND EMILY" AND WITH APOLOGIES TO THE MAYOR OF LOSTWITHIEL A BOROUGH FOR WHICH I HAVE (WITH CAUSE) MUCH AFFECTION AND A VERY HIGH ESTEEM. CONTENTS. Chapter. PROLOGUE. I. OUR MAJOR. II. OUR MAYOR. III. THE MILLENNIUM. IV. HOW THE TROY GALLANTS CHALLENGED THE LOOE DIEHARDS. V. INTERFERENCE OF A GUERNSEY MERCHANT. VI. MALBROUCK S'EN VA. VII. THE BATTLE OF TALLAND COVE. VIII. "COME, MY CORINNA, COME!" IX. BY LERRYN WATER. X. GUNNER SOBEY TURNS LOOSE THE MILLENNIUM. XI. THE MAJOR LEAVES US. XII. A COLD DOUCHE ON A HOT FIT. XIII. A VERY HOT PRESS. XIV. THE "VESUVIUS" BOMB. XV. UP-CHANNEL. XVI. FAREWELL TO ALBION! XVII. MISSING! XVIII. APOTHEOSIS. XIX. THE RETURN. XX. IN WHICH THE MAJOR LEARNS THAT NO MAN IS NECESSARY. XXI. FACES IN WATER. XXII. WINDS UP WITH A MERRY-GO-ROUND. THE MAYOR OF TROY. PROLOGUE. Good wine needs no bush; but this story has to begin with an apology. Years ago I promised myself to write a treatise on the lost Mayors of Cornwall--dignitaries whose pleasant fame is now night, recalled only by some neat byword or proverb current in the Delectable (or as a public speaker pronounced it the other day, the Dialectable) Duchy. Thus you may hear of "the Mayor of Falmouth, who thanked God when the town jail was enlarged"; "the Mayor of Market Jew, sitting in his own light"; "the Mayor of Tregoney, who could read print upside-down, but wasn't above being spoken to"; "the Mayor of Calenick, who walked two miles to ride one"; "the Mayor of East Looe, who called the King of England 'Brother.'" Everyone remembers the stately prose in which Gibbon records when and how he determined on his great masterpiece, when and how he completed it. "It was at Rome: on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the City first started in my mind." So I could tell with circumstance when, where and how I first proposed my treatise; and shall, perhaps, when I have concluded it. But life is short; and for the while my readers may be amused with an instalment.