"A bit touched, if yer asks me, sir," said Mr. Roberts as he puffed away contentedly at the cigar Cleek had offered him. "Never the same, so I've heard tell, since she was jilted thirty years ago by old Squire Brenton--Sir Edgar's father, that is--fine proper man he were, too, and when he found Miss Marion had a temper of her own, he up and cleared out. Next thing any one knows he comes back with his wife, a pretty slip of a thing, and our Sir Edgar a crowing baby. Miss Marion shut herself up then, and wouldn't 'ave a servant in the place except old Timms and his wife, as I said just now. There's no one to go near her, and I don't think Mr. Gunga Dall would visit her again in a hurry after the way she treated him. Nice old scene he had with 'er." "Hello, what's that?" said Cleek, suddenly. "A 'scene'? How and where?--or perhaps you don't know?" "As it happens, I do," said Constable Roberts, pompously. "My young Jim, the little varmint, chose that day to play truant, and at the identical moment that the old girl--lady, I mean, beggin' yer pardon, sir--pitched him into the water----" "_Into the water?_" echoed Cleek incredulously. "A lady pitched a gentleman into the water, Constable----" "Well, she did, anyway, and Jim said the way the gent cussed was a reg'lar lesson to 'im." "Fluent English, eh?" said Cleek. "Re-markable sir, for a pore benighted 'eathen. It's wonderful, that's wot I calls it, but it all came of 'im a wanting to go a fishing----" "Fishing--a Hindoo go fishing?" Cleek's brows came together in a heavy frown and his eyes narrowed down to pin points at this remarkable statement. "Yes, sir, you know the grounds of Cheyne Court slope right down to the river, and there is a fine bit of water there. According to my Jim, he went to ask the old lady's permission first, but getting no answer to all his knocks at the front door, he takes kind of French leave, as yer might say, and goes down to the spot, and starts in to fish. Well, sir, as I takes it, the old lady saw 'im from a hupper window and down she comes and abuses 'im like a pickpocket. Gunga he tried to pacify her, but she up and pushed him in, and as I said before, Jim's been a 'oly terror at language ever since! Not but it's any wonder, sir, cold water's not up to much at the best of times, and when you're an Indian and chucked in, so to speak, it's enough to make anybody's gorge rise. But I don't say but what the gent isn't as nice a man as you'd want to meet in a day's walk."