The Mayor of Troy

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

"Suspect? I suspect everybody. It's the rule of the service; and by following it I've reached the position I hold to-day."

"True." The Collector readjusted his spectacles and returned to his figures. There may have been just a hint of condolence in his accent, for the Riding Officer looked up sharply.

"If you lived in the north, Pennefather, do you know what we should say about you? We should say that you were no very gleg in the uptake."

"I once," answered the Collector, gently, without lifting his head from the ledger, "began to read Burns, but had to give him up on account of the dialect."

Meanwhile, all unaware of these dark suspicions, the Major and his Gallants were perfecting their preparations for the great surprise.

And what preparations! In the heat of them we had almost forgotten the Millennium itself!

For weeks the band had been practising a selection of tunes appropriate (1) to invasions in general and (2) to this particular invasion. There was "Britons, Strike Home!" for instance, and "The Padstow Hobby-horse," and "The Rout it is out for the Blues," slightly amended for the occasion:

"As I was a-walking on Downderry sands,
Some dainty fine sport for to view,
The maidens were wailing and wringing their hands—
Oh, the Rout it is out for the Looes,
For the Looes,
Oh, the Rout it is out for the Looes."

"As I was a-walking on Downderry sands,
Some dainty fine sport for to view,
The maidens were wailing and wringing their hands—
Oh, the Rout it is out for the Looes,
For the Looes,
Oh, the Rout it is out for the Looes."

The very urchins whistled and sang it about the streets. On the other hand, the Major's chivalrous proposal to hymn The George of Looe came to nothing, since Captain Pond could supply him with neither the words nor the air.