Page:Life's little ironies (1894).pdf/273

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INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF MR. CROOEBIEL 289

robbed the robber, hia sentence was comparatively light. The deserter from the Dragoons was never traced; his double shift of clothing having bean of the greatest advantage to him in getting off, though he left. Georgy's horse behind nim a few miles ahead, having found the poor creature more hinderance than aid.”

The man from abroad seemed to be less interested in the questionable characters of Longpuddle and their strange adventures than in the ordinary inhabitants and the ordinary events, though his local fellow-travellers preferred the former as subjects of discussion. He now for the first time asked concerning young persone of the opposite sex—or rather those who had been young when he left his native land. His informants, adhering to their own opinion that the remarkable was better worth telling than the ordinary, would not allow him to dwell upon the simple chronicles of those who had merely come and gone. They asked him if he remembered Netty Sargent.

“Netty Sargent—I do, just ramember her. She was a young woman living with her uncle when I left, if my childish recollection may be trusted.”

“That was the maid. She wag a oneyer, if you like, sir. Not any harm in her, you know, but up to everything. Yon ought to hear how she got the eopyhold of her house extended. Oughtn’t he, Mr. Day?”

“ He ought,” replied the world-ignored old painter.

“Tell him, Mr. Day. Nobody ean de it better than you, and you know the legal part better than some of ua.”

Day apologized, and began:

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