"We had Miss King out too," said Meldon, "and we didn't want to drown her. Besides, it wasn't the kind of day in which you could very well drown any one." "What brought me over here this morning," said Doyle, "was--" "I know," said Meldon. "You want to gather in the Major's subscription to the illuminated address with the apple trees in the corners. You shall have it. He's signing the cheque this minute." "I'll take it, of course," said Doyle, "if it's quite convenient to the Major; but it wasn't it I came for." "What was it, then? If you have any idea of dragging the Major into that salmon ambuscade of O'Donoghue's, I tell you plainly I won't have it." "It's nothing of the kind," said Doyle. "After what you said on Friday we gave that notion up. What brought me here to-day was to see if the Major would lend me a set of car cushions. The rats got in on the ones I have of my own, and they've holes ate in them so as you'd be ashamed to put them on a car." "You shall have them with the greatest possible pleasure," said Meldon. "Not the new ones," said the Major through the window. "I thought," said Meldon; "that you didn't want to be disturbed, and that I was carrying on this negotiation with Mr. Doyle. You must do one thing or the other, Major. Either come out and manage your own affairs, or else leave them entirely in my hands.--You can't," he said, turning to Doyle, "have the new cushions unless for some very special purpose. Is Miss King thinking of going for a drive on your car? If she is, the Major will lend the new cushions." "She is not," said Doyle; "not that I heard of any way, though she might take the notion later." "Then what do you want the cushions for?" "It's an English gentleman," said Doyle; "a high-up man by all accounts, that has the fishing took from Simpkins. He'll be stopping in the hotel, and he'll want the car to take him up the river in the morning. The kind of man he is, I wouldn't like to be putting him off with my old cushions. They're terrible bad, the way the rats has them ate on me." "If he really is a man of eminence in any walk of life," said Meldon--"a bishop, for instance, or a member of the House of Lords, or a captain of industry, you can have the cushions. If he's simply a second-rate man of the ordinary tourist type, you can't." "He's a judge," said Doyle, "and what's more, an English judge."