"What's queer?" He asked it sharply.
"Why, to find a gardener cox'n of a life-boat."
"He followed the sea in early life. But I'll tell you what is queer, and that's his last wish. His particular desire was that I, and I alone, should screw down the coffin. He had Trudgeon the carpenter up to measure him, and begged this of me in Trudgeon's presence and the doctor's. What's more, I consented."
"That's jolly unpleasant," was my comment, for lack of a better.
The Vicar sat silent for a while, staring across the lawn, while I watched a spider which had let itself down from a branch overhead and was casting anchor on the decanter's rim. With his next question he seemed to have changed the subject.
"Where do you keep your boat now?"
"Renatus Warne has been putting in a new strake and painting her.
I shall have her down on the beach to-morrow."
"Ah, so that's it? I cast my eye over the beach this afternoon and couldn't see her. You haven't been trying for the conger lately."
"We'll have a try to-morrow evening if you'll come, Sir. I wish you would."
The Vicar, though he seldom found time for the sport, was a famous fisherman. He shook his head; and then, leaning an arm on the table, gazed at me with sudden seriousness.