Wolf shook hands with Mr. Valley and commiserated his father-in-law on his defeat. “It’s a wonder I didn’t lose a lot of money over you,” he said facetiously. “I backed you to the limit to beat our friend Roger, for the honour of the family; and now you’ve let us all down, and the West Country too! Mr. Monk, so he tells me, comes from the Shires.”

“Shires be damned, Mr. Solent!” said the monument-maker. “ ’Tweren’t no shires! ’Twere me wone bloody cussedness. If I’d ’a known then what I do know now, ’twould be he and me”⁠—he nodded in the direction of Mr. Malakite⁠—“and not he and him , for this here final.”

“How is it that you got knocked out so soon, Valley?” enquired Wolf.