“It’s only manure,” he said presently, rising with a flushed face.

“Thank you, Mr. Otter, thank you very much,” said Selena Gault. “I must have trodden on something.”

“I hope you found my mother in her best mood,” said Wolf.

Miss Gault frowned a little and then smiled on him graciously.

“Thank you for helping us to renew our old acquaintance, boy,” she said. “But it’s really Mr. Urquhart who ought to be thanked by everybody for bringing you down to us at all.”

“Thank Redfern, not me,” said the Squire, in his silkiest tone. “It’s quite an art, isn’t it, Otter, this business of leaving the world conveniently?”