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 been neither hide nor yet hair of our late respected incumbent scented out as yet; not that he was what the Scripture terms a hairy man in any sense of the word.’

I said—as well as I could—that I supposed not, but could not help adding that I had heard he was sometimes a little difficult to deal with. Mr. Bowman looked at me sharply for a moment, and then passed in a flash from solemn sympathy to impassioned declamation. ‘When I think,’ he said, ‘of the language that man see fit to employ to me in this here parlour over no more a matter than a cask of beer—such a thing as I told him might happen any day of the week to a man with a family—though as it turned out he was quite under a mistake, and that I knew at the time, only I was that shocked to hear him I couldn’t lay my tongue to the right expression.’

He stopped abruptly and eyed me with some embarrassment. I only said, ‘Dear me, I’m sorry to hear you had any little differences; I suppose my uncle will be a good deal missed in the parish?’ Mr. Bowman drew a long breath. ‘Ah, yes!’ he said; ‘your uncle! You’ll understand me when I say that for the moment it had slipped my remembrance that