Having sealed this communication with a wafer, and deposited it at the receiving-office, Captain Staple gathered together his various packages, and set out on the homeward journey.
He had not proceeded very far along the road out of the town before Miss Stornaway overtook him. She pulled up, and he was soon seated beside her again, bowling along in the direction of Crowford.
“I must tell you at once that I have exceeded your instructions, and bought for you, besides wax candles, a lamp which you may set upon the table, and which will be very much more the thing for you,” she told him. “You informed me that you were in the possession of an independence, so I did not scruple to lay out another six shillings of your money. Did you contrive to procure raiment more fitted to your calling than what you are wearing now?”
“Yes, but I had a great fancy for a frieze coat, and I could not find one to fit me!”
“You mean, I collect, into which you might squeeze yourself!” she retorted. “Well! I warned you how it would be! Tideswell is not, after all, a large town.”
“No,” he agreed. “And sadly lacking in historic interest. Apart from its spring there really seems to be nothing to say about it, which leaves me quite at a loss.”
“Oh?” she said, puzzled, and slightly suspicious.
“We could talk about the weather, of course,” he said thoughtfully. “Or I could describe to you some of the places I have visited abroad.”
She bit her lip, but when he began, in the blandest way, to expatiate upon the grandeur of the Pyrenees, she interrupted him, exclaiming impetuously: “I wish you will not be so foolish! I don’t care a button for the Pyrenees!”
“You would care even less for them, had you ever been obliged to winter there,” he observed. “You choose what we are to talk about! Only don’t say, Captain Staple! and then decide that I am not, after all, a trustworthy confidant.”