“I don’t know whose feelings you are so careful of, Mr. Manley,” he said. “But since I happen to be myself one of these unfortunate ‘educated’ people, and since Mr. Solent, my father, came to grief in this neighbourhood, I should be very glad indeed to hear anything else you may be anxious to tell us.”

His voice, heard now by the whole company for the first time, had a disquieting tone; and everyone was silent. But Jason Otter rose to his feet, and, in the midst of that silence and under the startled attention of all eyes in the room, walked with short quick steps across the floor till he came close up to Farmer Manley, who was leaning his back against the little counter and who had his hands in his pockets; and there he stopped, facing him. No one but Wolf could see the expression on his countenance; and there were all kinds of different versions afterwards as to what actually happened. But what Wolf himself knew was that the excited man was no longer under the restraint of his natural timidity.