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Dodd cost him more trouble: her soft hand trembled still in his, and she put question upon question. But when he told her he with his own eyes had seen Captain Dodd talking to Maxley, and gathered from Maxley he had been shipwrecked on the coast of France, and lost his chronometer and his sextant, these details commanded credit.
A loud and general laugh greeted this boast. Then Maxley snatched up his hat in great wrath and some anxiety, and went out followed by a peal. In five minutes he was at home; and tossed the note into his wife's lap. She was knitting by a farthing dip. "Dame," said he, controlling all appearance of anxiety, "what d'ye call that?" She took up the note and held it close to the candle.
Her spirits were so uncertain, that things too minute to justify narration turned the scale either way: a word from Mrs. Dodd a new face at St. Anne's Church looking devoutly her way a piece of town gossip distilled in her ear by Mrs. Maxley and she was sprightly or languid, and both more than reason. One drizzly afternoon they were sitting silent and saddish in the drawing-room, Mrs.
"A mouse!" inquired Sampson disdainfully. "Where? Up your sleeve? Don't come to me: go t' a sawbones and have your arm cut off. I've seen 'em mutilate a pashint for as little." Maxley said it was not up his sleeve, worse luck. On this Alfred hazarded a conjecture. "Might it not have gone down his throat? Took his potato-trap for the pantry-door. Ha! ha!"
"There ain't many in Barkington as ever done me a good turn, Master Alfred; you be one on 'em: you comes after the Captain in my book now." Alfred suggested that his claims were humble compared with Sampson's. "No, no," said Maxley, going down to his whisper, and looking, monstrous wise: "Doctor didn't go out of his business for me: you did."
Alfred consented readily, and paid the money. Then Maxley told him it was Captain Dodd he had been talking with. "I thought so! I thought so!" cried Alfred joyfully, "but I was afraid to believe it: it was too delightful. Maxley, you're a trump you don't know what anxiety you have relieved me of. Some fool has gone and reported the Agia wrecked; look here!" and he showed him his Lloyd's.
Wrecked? Why, Captain, you haven't ever been wrecked?" And he looked him all over as if he expected to see "WRECKED" branded on him by the elements. "Ay, James, wrecked on the French coast, and lost my chronometer, and a tip-top sextant. But what of that? I saved It. I have just landed It in the Bank. Good-bye; I must sheer off: I long to be home." "Stay a bit, Captain," said Maxley.
Hardie was visibly discountenanced, and Alfred more so. Mr. Osmond, to relieve a situation so painful, asked Maxley rather hastily what were the curious things he saw. Maxley shuddered. "The unreasonablest beasts, sir, you ever saw or heard tell on: mostly snakes and dragons. Can't stoop my head to do no work for them, sir.
Maxley one night found something rough at her feet in bed. "What on earth is this?" said she. "Never you mind," said Maxley: "say it's my breeches; what then?" "Why, what on earth does the man put his breeches to bed for?" "That is my business," roared Maxley, and whispered drily, "'tain't for you to wear 'em, howsever."
James Maxley kept Mr. Hardie's little pleasaunce trim as trim could be, by yearly contract.
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