The Major withered his rival with an eloquent silence.
"Here am I," he said, snatching from the mantelpiece a diminutive Worcester shepherdess and placing it between the two chairs.
The widow gazed anxiously at the pastoral soldier. It belonged to the owner of the house.
"Here is Tournai. You'll pardon me, sir, but I should be obliged if you would hand me the couch," said the Major fiercely.
The Justice moved wearily to the window-seat. That, at all events, was a fixture, he reflected gratefully.
After much exertion Tarry succeeded in moving the couch in front of the door, so that if the piece of furniture in question was a poor representation of what it was intended to convey, it certainly made of Mrs. Courteen's front parlour something very like an impregnable fortress.
"I should be glad to give you some idea of the enemy's earthworks," said the Major with a covetous glance in the direction of the chintz window-curtains.
Mrs. Courteen's fleeting expression of dismay warned him to prune the luxuriance of his examples, and as at that moment a tap at the door necessitated the instant surrender of Tournai to admit Mrs. Betty farther operations were stopped. Moreover the sudden capitulation involved the fracture of the Worcester shepherdess which, as Mr. Moon sardonically supposed, served to illustrate the point of the story.
"You're killed, Tarry; you're dead as mutton. I doubt a cure is inconceivable."
Betty held a note in her hands.