"You could, Sabina. Don't raise frivolous difficulties. Anybody could keep an egg until it was stale." "Not in this house." "And why not?" "Because they'd be ate," said Sabina. "Whatever many eggs the hens might lay they'd be ate by some one before they were a day in the house, and I couldn't keep them. There was a little Plymouth Rock hen that was wanting to sit here last week, and it took me all I could do and more to get the eggs saved up for her, and at the latter end I had only nine." "Is she sitting yet!" "She is, of course." "Then you might try the judge with the eggs that's under her." "I will not, then. Is it after all the trouble I had with her, and the chickens will be out early next week. I never heard of the like." "Well," said Meldon, "I'll have to leave the boiled eggs to you, Sabina, but I'll be disappointed in you if the judge eats them. Do you think now that you thoroughly understand what you've got to do?" "I do. Why wouldn't I?" "Then I'll say good-bye to you. I'm much obliged to you for the cup of tea. And remember, Sabina, this isn't any kind of a joke. It's serious business, and I mean every word I say. It's most important that the judge should leave Ballymoy as soon as possible." "Is it persecuting the League boys he's after?" said Sabina. "For there's a cousin of my own that's in with them, and--" "Brother of the red-haired girl at Mr. Simpkins?" "He is; and I wouldn't like any harm would come to him." "You act as I have told you, and no harm will come to him. But if the judge stays on here it's impossible to say what may happen. You know what judges are, Sabina." "I've heard tell of them, and it's mighty little good is ever said of them or their like." "Quite so," said Meldon. "So you do your best to get this one out of Ballymoy." CHAPTER XV. Meldon, although he still kept Doyle's bicycle, did not arrive at Portsmouth Lodge until after eight o'clock. Major Kent had waited dinner for him, and was therefore, as even the best men are under such circumstances, in a very bad temper. When Meldon walked into the study he was sitting with _The Times_ spread out on his knee. "I have had," said Meldon, "a long and particularly exhausting kind of day. I didn't get much lunch with the judge at Donard, and although I had a cup of tea with Sabina Gallagher at the hotel, I had so much to say to her that I didn't eat much. I hope dinner's ready." "Dinner," growled the Major, "has been ready for more than an hour." "Good," said Meldon. "I'm certainly ready for it. Come on." "I wish to goodness," said the Major, rising, "that you'd occasionally try to be in time for a meal." "There's no use wishing that. I won't. It's a matter of principle with me. I regard punctuality as the vice of little minds. Time is meant to be the servant, not the master of--"