"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Berry, feeling she was called upon for an appropriate sentiment; "you may say so, Mr. Stack. Such is life!" Cicero, munching his bread-and-cheese, felt that his imposing personality was being neglected, and seized upon what he deemed his opportunity. "If this company will permit," he said, "I propose now to give a recitation apropos of the present melancholy event. Need I say I refer to the lamented death of Mr. Marlow?" "I'll have no godless mumming here," said Mrs. Timber firmly. "Besides, what do you know about Mr. Marlow?" Whereupon Cicero lied lustily to impress the bumpkins, basing his fiction upon such facts as his ears had enabled him to come by. "Marlow!" he wailed, drawing forth his red bandana for effect. "Did I not know him as I know myself? Were we not boys together till he went to Africa?" "Perhaps you can tell us about Mr. Marlow," said the schoolmaster eagerly. "None of us knows exactly who he was. He appeared here with his daughter some five years ago, and took the Moat House. He was rich, and people said he had made his riches in South Africa." "He did! he did!" said Cicero, deeply affected. "Millions he was worth--millions! I came hither to see him, and I arrive to find the fond friend of my youth dead. Oh, Jonathan, my brother Jonathan!" "His name was Richard," said Mrs. Timber suspiciously. "I know it, I know it. I use the appellation Jonathan merely in illustration of the close friendship which was between us. I am David." "H'm!" snorted Mrs. Timber, eying him closely, "and who was Mr. Marlow?" This leading question perplexed Mr. Gramp not a little, for he knew nothing about the man. "What!" he cried, with simulated horror. "Reveal the secrets of the dead? Never! never!" "Secrets?" repeated the lean stonemason eagerly. "Ah! I always thought Mr. Marlow had 'em. He looked over his shoulder too often for my liking. An' there was a look on his face frequent which pointed, I may say, to a violent death." "Ah! say not that my friend Dick Marlow came to an untimely end." This outcry came from Cicero; it was answered by Mrs. Timber. "He died of a fit," she said tartly, "and that quietly enough, considering as Dr. Warrender can testify. But now we've talked enough, an' I'm going to lock up; so get out, all of you!" In a few minutes the taproom was cleared and the lights out. Cicero, greatly depressed, lingered in the porch, wondering how to circumvent the dragon. "Well," snapped that amiable beast, "what are you waitin' for?" "You couldn't give me a bed for the night?" "Course I could, for a shillin'." "I haven't a shilling, I regret to say." "Then you'd best get one, or go without your bed," replied the lady, and banged the door in his face. Under this last indignity even Cicero's philosophy gave way, and he launched an ecclesiastic curse at the inhospitable inn.