Corporal Sam and Other Stories

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

'Do you know, Minards, I was at Tregarrick yesterday; and I think— yes, without vaunting, I really think that the best of my pearmains yonder would have stood a fair chance of the prize for Table Varieties.'

'The prize?' grunted Captain Minards. 'Don't you fret about that: you won it all right.'

'Eh?' queried Doctor Unonius, wiping his spectacles.

'Ay,' said Captain Minards, filling a pipe; 'you won it, right enough.'

'But—'

'There's no "but" about it. And what vexes me,' pursued Captain
Minards, 'is that the rascals don't even trouble to rob you neatly.
See that branch broken, yonder.'

'That's with the weight of the crop.'

'Weight o' my fiddlestick! And the ground all strewed with short twigs!'

'The wind's doing.'

'When you know the weather has been flat calm for a week past!'