"Nearly isn't quite."
"And who are you, please?"
"Oh, we are not of vast importance. My full name is Arthur Sidney Stanley. It was a shame to give me such names, as I can't possibly put my initials on anything. That little beast, Teenie, always calls me ass. We're not exactly paupers, as we own a big share in a number of stores all over the south. There's one at Drivelford."
"I've been in it hundreds of times, and distinctly remember seeing you behind the counter."
"Don't be horrid. I've never been to Drivelford in my life, but I'm going there tomorrow if you are."
"Who is Mr. Brock?" she asked in a great hurry.
"Really my grandfather, and the owner of Black Anchor Farm, also the patron of the living. Now you know why the vicar condescends to visit us. Brock is such a common name in this part of Devonshire that nobody could dream he is the Mr. Brock."
"And why did you come here? Why have you lived, like a couple of common people, in this ramshackle place, without housekeeper or servant? You simply made the people talk about you. How could they understand a couple of gentlemen pigging it! Your mother and sisters coming here naturally made a scandal. Even I couldn't believe they were your relations, though I was positive you were much better than you pretended to be. I shall never forgive you for talking to me in Devonshire dialect, though I'm quite willing to forget you had supper one Sunday evening in our kitchen."
"Wasn't it fun too!" Sidney chuckled. "I wanted grandfather to come, but he drew the line at that. When you know grandfather well—and that's going to be jolly soon—you will guess how enormously he has enjoyed his time here. It was his idea entirely. He loves roughing it, he has spent most of his life knocking about the world, and he's only really happy in a cottage. He declares luxury and high feeding kill more people than any disease. It's only the rustic who lives to be a hundred, he says; and, as he means to score a century himself, he takes a spell of living like a rustic occasionally. He could never get a satisfactory tenant for this place, so he told father one day he'd made up his mind to show the commoners what hard work could accomplish on a Dartmoor farm."
"Where do you come in?"