At the Vicar’s explanation the Sergeant mopped his forehead in relief. “I’ve a man’s job to keep Christians in order, without shadowing the heathen,” said he. “I’m convinced that his master and himself are a pair of harmless eccentrics,” said the Vicar. And the Vicar’s word went the round of the district, and eccentrics, or the nearest approach to it that local tongues could manage, the inhabitants of Spendale Farm were finally designated—though what were “eccentrics” remained a matter of pleasant and fruitful conjecture. When Quong Ho returned to the farmhouse after his encounter with Sergeant Doubleday, he said nothing about his registration as an alien. Nor did it occur to him to show the paper money which he had received in lieu of the usual gold in exchange for the cheque which he had cashed at the bank; for the disposal of petty cash did not concern John Baltazar, who rightly trusted in the Chinaman’s scrupulous honesty. That, in spite of the most definite orders, he should leave Baltazar uninformed of the various signs and tokens of national unrest which he had observed at Water-End, caused Quong Ho occasional twinges of conscience. He remembered the saying: “_To shirk your duty when you see it before you, shows want of moral courage._” But what was his duty? On the other hand, there was the dictum: “_To sacrifice to a spirit with which you have nothing to do is mere servility._” What had he to do with this purely English war-spirit that he should servilely sacrifice to it his almost filial obligations? Obviously nothing. Quong Ho therefore continued to purvey no idle gossip, and went about his varied avocations with a serene mind. Now, as John Baltazar, who had been dead to the English-speaking world for nearly twenty years, held correspondence with no one save a few necessary tradesmen, mostly booksellers, as he took in no periodical, daily, weekly, monthly or annual of any kind whatever, and as he conversed with no human being except Quong Ho, whose lips he had sealed, he had created for himself an almost perfect barrage through which the news of contemporary happenings could not penetrate.