Three ladies in black, gentry, not villagers, came in for groceries; and Mr. Wright served them with that manner of respectful independence by which he accentuated his equal contempt for familiarity or obsequiousness. “If it comes to being done by landlords,” Doug broke out, “I’d back that jolly old pair of ruffians, the Abbotts, against your Mr. Wenn any day!” “They let me Parc Gooth, you know,” he continued, unabashed by Mr. Wright’s visible anguish at the fourteen indiscretions committed by that one speech. “Rum old couple. They told me _you_ weren’t straight, among other things; but as it turned out a sort of obsession with them that nobody was straight, I didn’t bother.” “Indeed, sir. Thank you, Mrs. Rowe; thank you, Miss Tregunter. I’m sorry I haven’t that size needles, but I’ll try and put it through for you, if you’ll leave it in my hands. Good morning....” Alone with the Barrisons again, Mr. Wright was in a quandary. He badly wanted to talk about the Abbotts; in fact, he had inside information about Parc Gooth; but he felt also that Doug ought to be brought to realize he had committed grave errors of policy. So that his reply was stiff and shaded with reproach. “I’m not surprised Mr. Abbott should not be feeling friendly towards me, sir. I was rather disposed to be reserved and cautious in my dealings with him. He was too fond of calling everybody a rogue, to be altogether an honest man himself. Now Miss Gregson, who built Parc Gooth, she was of good family, there was no mistaking it; she wore her hair short like a man’s, and had a deep bullying voice, and her clothes might have been fished out of the bottom of a ditch when the winter floods went down. But for all that, so soft-hearted and believing, that any one could have made a fool of her, and most people did, hereabouts. And then she married a pretty fellow, an Italian circus-rider, they said he was, and that was the end of her as far as St. Miniot was concerned. And that was where Mr. and Mrs. Abbott came in. You took the house direct from the Laceys, I suppose?” “Without seeing them, yes. But when we got there, we found a respectable old granny and grandfather camping in the wash-house, and they smiled at us and said they were the Abbotts and we weren’t to trust the Laceys because the house was really not theirs for letting. We tried to work it out, and they treated us to an excellent supper they had ordered in at our expense, and ate some oatmeal biscuits and onions themselves, and we discussed Bocaccio.... Mrs. Abbott had a sort of thin brittle titter as though you were treading on dry leaves, which rather upset me, and the old chap reminded me of a discontented Mr. Pickwick....” “Quite so, sir,” put in Mr. Wright, to show that he had read Dickens.