“Dulness!” exclaimed the damsel. “That’s the right word for Market Milcaster. There’s just a few regular old customers drop in here of a morning, between eleven and one. A stray caller looks in—perhaps during the afternoon. Then, at night, a lot of old fogies sit round that end of the room and talk about old times. Old times, indeed!—what they want in Market Milcaster is new times.” Spargo pricked up his ears. “Well, but it’s rather interesting to hear old fogies talk about old times,” he said. “I love it!” “Then you can get as much of it as ever you want here,” remarked the barmaid. “Look in tonight any time after eight o’clock, and if you don’t know more about the history of Market Milcaster by ten than you did when you sat down, you must be deaf. There are some old gentlemen drop in here every night, regular as clockwork, who seem to feel that they couldn’t go to bed unless they’ve told each other stories about old days which I should think they’ve heard a thousand times already!” “Very old men?” asked Spargo. “Methuselahs,” replied the lady. “There’s old Mr. Quarterpage, across the way there, the auctioneer, though he doesn’t do any business now—they say he’s ninety, though I’m sure you wouldn’t take him for more than seventy. And there’s Mr. Lummis, further down the street—he’s eighty-one. And Mr. Skene, and Mr. Kaye—they’re regular patriarchs. I’ve sat here and listened to them till I believe I could write a history of Market Milcaster since the year One.” “I can conceive of that as a pleasant and profitable occupation,” said Spargo. He chatted a while longer in a fashion calculated to cheer the barmaid’s spirits, after which he went out and strolled around the town until seven o’clock, the “Dragon’s” hour for dinner. There were no more people in the big coffee-room than there had been at lunch and Spargo was glad, when his solitary meal was over, to escape to the bar-parlour, where he took his coffee in a corner near to that sacred part in which the old townsmen had been reported to him to sit. “And mind you don’t sit in one of their chairs,” said the barmaid, warningly. “They all have their own special chairs and their special pipes there on that rack, and I suppose the ceiling would fall in if anybody touched pipe or chair. But you’re all right there, and you’ll hear all they’ve got to say.” To Spargo, who had never seen anything of the sort before, and who, twenty-four hours previously, would have believed the thing impossible, the proceedings of that evening in the bar-parlour of the “Yellow Dragon” at Market Milcaster were like a sudden transference to the eighteenth century. Precisely as the clock struck eight and a bell began to toll somewhere in the recesses of the High Street, an old gentleman walked in, and the barmaid, catching Spargo’s eye, gave him a glance which showed that the play was about to begin. “Good evening, Mr. Kaye,” said the barmaid. “You’re first tonight.”