Mr. Gubbins, who was extremely fond of poetry, often thought of those lines in “Maud” which assure her that if she were to pass near the final resting place of her lover: his “heart would hear her and beat,” had he “lain for a century dead.” Mr. Gubbins was under the impression that his own heart would act in a precisely similar manner should Onoria visit his grave. Mr. Gubbins had a large Tabby cat called Samson, of which he was inordinately proud. Samson did not so much return, as passively accept, his master’s nervous devotion. He was inconsiderate about sleeping in a basket. Inflexible arrangements, when they were not his own, galled him; and though he knew his name perfectly, he had never been known to answer to it, unless he had reason to believe that fish was at the other end. Peter Gubbins was very fond of all small and reasonably gentle animals, and often took Prendergast for a walk if Miss Strickland hadn’t time. Prendergast accompanied Mr. Gubbins for the sake of the walk, but he made it perfectly plain from the first (just as Miss Strickland herself had done) that he thought nothing of Peter Gubbins as a companion. Mr. Gubbins made himself useful in other ways. He really knew a great deal more about gardens than Onoria did, and he loved them—under his breath as it were—because Onoria was always pointing out to him how much rubbish was talked and written upon the subject of gardens. The Garden of Eden had started the topic, and no one had been able to let it alone since. Peter Gubbins had a private income and wrote occasional articles and poems for magazines. The articles dealt with sweet peas, on which he was an expert, and Roman Catholicism, on which he was not, but by dint of studying the works of ex-nuns and monks, he had arrived at some very startling theories upon the Roman Catholic religion suitable for very low church magazines. The poems were on certain aspects of nature which have unfortunately occurred to other persons in search of poetic subjects; still they were occasionally published and Mr. Gubbins signed them “Sirius.” (As he often wrote about stars, and always referred to them as “bright,” his signature could not have been more appropriate.) Obviously “Peter Gubbins” applauding the universe would not do. He never showed the poems to Onoria, but they shared the articles on Rome, and sometimes Onoria liked them, though she felt them to be too milk and watery to do real justice to the subject. It was inconsistent of Onoria to have such a decided bias against Rome, for she was very fond of law and order, and considered authority final. She said “This settles it” about a dozen times a day, and no Pope has ever made more ex-cathedra proclamations in the twenty-four hours. Mr. Gubbins was by no means Onoria’s greatest man friend; she merely saw him the most. Men liked Onoria, and Onoria liked men. Whether she had a secret passion for any of the more virile types of Little Ticklington will never be known.