"All are welcome," declared Shillabeer with restrained enthusiasm. "I shall hope to have a sing-song for Mr. Fogo one night. And he’ll tell you about Bendigo, and Ben Gaunt, and Burke, ’the Deaf ’Un,’ and many of the great mills in the forties. I was the very daps of Ben Gaunt myself--though he stood half an inch higher. We was neither of us in the first rank for science, but terrible strong and gluttons for punishment. Gaunt was Champion in his day, but never to be named alongside Cribb or Dutch Sam or Crawley or Jem Belcher." "When’s he to be here?" asked Mr. Maunder. "I feel almost as if such a man of war threatens to break the peace by coming amongst us." "You’re a fool," answered David, bluntly. "A man like you, instead of being in such a mortal dread of peace-breaking, ought to welcome the chance of it now and again. If I was a policeman, I should soon get tired of just paddling up and down through Sheep’s Tor mud, week in, week out, and never have nought to do but help a lame dog over a stile or tell some traveller the way. ’Tis a tame and spiritless life." "The tamer the better," declared Ernest Maunder, frankly. "I like it tame. ’Tis my business to maintain law and order, and that I will do, Bowden. And to tell me I’m a fool is very disorderly in you, as well you know. I may have my faults, but a fool I’m not, as this bar will bear me out." "I merely say," returned David, "that if I was a peeler, I should want to earn my money, and have a dash at life, and make a stir, if ’twas only against poachers here and there." "Shows how little you know about it," answered Maunder. He was a placid, straw-coloured man, with an official mind. "You say ’poachers.’ Well, poachers ban’t my business. Poachers come under a different law, and unless I have the office from headquarters to set out against ’em to the neglect of my beat, I can’t do it. I’m part of a machine, and if I got running about as you say, I should throw the machine out of order." "What for do you want to speak to the man like that?" asked Mattacott, who was the policeman’s friend. "You Bowdens all think yourselves so much above the common people--God knows why for. One would guess you was spoiling for a fight yourself. Well, I daresay, the ’Dumpling’ here could find somebody at your own weight as wouldn’t fear a set to with you." "Why not you?" said Bowden. "When you like, Mattacott." "What a fiery twoad ’tis! Why, you’m a stone heavier than me, and years younger." Mr. Shillabeer regarded David with some professional interest.