"Dear me!"
"We do, though; nobody knows what a county Norfolk is. Taking it altogether, including the game you know, and Lord Nelson, and its watering-places and the rest of it, I don't think there's a county in England to beat it. Fancy feeding one-third of all England and Wales!"
"With bread and cheese, do you mean, and those sort of things?"
"Beef!" said Mr. Cheesacre, and in his patriotic energy he repeated the word aloud. "Beef! Yes indeed; but if you were to tell them that in London they wouldn't believe you. Ah! you should certainly come down and see our lands. The 7.45 a.m. train would take you through Norwich to my door, as one may say, and you would be back by the 6.22 p.m." In this way he brought himself back again into good-humour, feeling, that in the absence of the widow, he could not do better than make progress with the niece.
In the mean time Mrs. Greenow and the captain were getting on very comfortably in the other boat. "Take an oar, Captain," one of the men had said to him as soon as he had placed the ladies. "Not to-day, Jack," he had answered. "I'll content myself with being bo'san this morning." "The best thing as the bo'san does is to pipe all hands to grog," said the man. "I won't be behind in that either," said the captain; and so they all went on swimmingly.
"What a fine generous fellow your friend, Mr. Cheesacre, is!" said the widow.
"Yes, he is; he's a capital fellow in his way. Some of these Norfolk farmers are no end of good fellows."
"And I suppose he's something more than a common farmer. He's visited by the people about where he lives, isn't he?"
"Oh, yes, in a sort of a way. The county people, you know, keep themselves very much to themselves."
"That's of course. But his house;—he has a good sort of place, hasn't he?"