"Love him?" said Mrs Hampton. "She does not even like him, only fights hard to do what she has been told." The day passed quietly enough in the drawing-room, but the sudden departure of the owner of The Mynns formed a topic of conversation among the servants. John Season, the gardener, came in for what he called "just a snack" about twelve o'clock, the said snack being termed lunch; but as John, a dry-looking gentleman with a countenance like a piece of ruddy bark, did not dine at quality hours, the snack served as dinner and saved him from going home, beside being an economy, as cook was not particular about his making a sandwich to wrap in his red cotton pocket-handkerchief "again he felt a bit peckish." Not that he ever did feel a bit peckish after the hearty snack, for his sandwich was pecked by the four young Seasons at home. John's making of that sandwich was artistic and exact, for the slices of cold beef were always fitted on to the bottom slice of bread with the regularity to be expected of a man who kept a garden tidy. The top slice, as if from absence of mind, was also covered with slices to the same degree of exactness, and then after a liberal sprinkling of the sanitary salt, and spreading of the mordant mustard, these two slices were placed close together at the cut edge. Now, to some unpractised hands a difficulty would here have arisen--how to get those two slices together without letting the beef get out of place. But John Season was not unpractised. Some people would have solved the problem by cutting two more slices of bread, and clapping them on the top. But that would have looked grasping. John was allowed by cook to cut himself a sandwich. That would have looked like cutting two sandwiches. True, there was the beef for two sandwiches there; but then it did not appear to be so to the casual observer, and as bread was fairly plentiful at home, while beef was not, John got over the difficulty in a way which salved his conscience and the cook's. On this particular morning, John had been very busy eating, with his mouth so full that he did not care to talk. The beef was sirloin, and the prime thick, streaked, juicy undercut, with its marrowy fat, had been untouched. The knife was sharp, and John had eaten and carved his sandwich till he had laid down the keen blade with a sigh, gazing at his work, and then at the glass of beer freshly drawn for his use. "Yes?" he said to the cook and housemaid, to take up a thread of conversation which had been lying untouched for twenty minutes; "he came home with his head queer, did he?" "Yes, and bleeding," said the housemaid. "I dunno where he'd been." "I do," said John, altering the position of one of his beef-laden slices, so that it should be exactly parallel with the other, and one inch away. "You do, John?" said the cook, with her eyes wide open. "Yes. Under the laurels half asleep. I see him." "But he hadn't been out?" said the housemaid. "Not he."