Dialstone Lane | Page 4

Tredgold,
refusing the captain's invitation to stay for a cup of tea, took his
departure.
"Very nice youngster that," said the captain, looking after him. "A little
bit light-hearted in his ways, perhaps, but none the worse for that."
He sat down and looked round at his possessions. "The first real home
I've had for nearly fifty years," he said, with great content. "I hope
you'll be as happy here as I intend to be. It sha'n't be my fault if you're
not."
Mr. Tredgold walked home deep in thought, and by the time he had
arrived there had come to the conclusion that if Miss Drewitt favoured
her mother, that lady must have been singularly unlike Captain Bowers
in features.
CHAPTER II
In less than a week Captain Bowers had settled down comfortably in
his new command. A set of rules and regulations by which Mr. Joseph
Tasker was to order his life was framed and hung in the pantry. He
studied it with care, and, anxious that there should be no possible
chance of a misunderstanding, questioned the spelling in three
instances. The captain's explanation that he had spelt those words in the
American style was an untruthful reflection upon a great and friendly
nation.
Dialstone Lane was at first disposed to look askance at Mr. Tasker.
Old-fashioned matrons clustered round to watch him cleaning the
doorstep, and, surprised at its whiteness, withdrew discomfited.
Rumour had it that he liked work, and scandal said that he had wept
because he was not allowed to do the washing.

[Illustration: "Old-fashioned matrons clustered round to watch him
cleaning the doorstep."
The captain attributed this satisfactory condition of affairs to the rules
and regulations, though a slight indiscretion on the part of Mr. Tasker,
necessitating the unframing of the document to add to the latter, caused
him a little annoyance.
The first intimation he had of it was a loud knocking at the front door
as he sat dozing one afternoon in his easy-chair. In response to his
startled cry of "Come in!" the door opened and a small man, in a state
of considerable agitation, burst into the room and confronted him.
"My name is Chalk," he said, breathlessly.
"A friend of Mr. Tredgold's? "said the captain. "I've heard of you, sir."
The visitor paid no heed.
"My wife wishes to know whether she has got to dress in the dark every
afternoon for the rest of her life," he said, in fierce but trembling tones.
"Got to dress in the dark?" repeated the astonished captain.
"With the blind down," explained the other.
Captain Bowers looked him up and down. He saw a man of about fifty
nervously fingering the little bits of fluffy red whisker which grew at
the sides of his face, and trying to still the agitation of his tremulous
mouth.
"How would you like it yourself?" demanded the visitor, whose manner
was gradually becoming milder and milder. "How would you like a
telescope a yard long pointing--"
He broke off abruptly as the captain, with a smothered oath, dashed out
of his chair into the garden and stood shaking his fist at the crow's-nest
at the bottom.

"Joseph!" he bawled.
"Yes, sir," said Mr. Tasker, removing the telescope described by Mr.
Chalk from his eye, and leaning over.
"What are you doing with that spy-glass?" demanded his master,
beckoning to the visitor, who had drawn near. "How dare you stare in
at people's windows?"
"I wasn't, sir," replied Mr. Tasker, in an injured voice. "I wouldn't think
o' such a thing--I couldn't, not if I tried."
"You'd got it pointed straight at my bedroom window," cried Mr. Chalk,
as he accompanied the captain down the garden. "And it ain't the first
time."
"I wasn't, sir," said the steward, addressing his master. "I was watching
the martins under the eaves."
"You'd got it pointed at my window," persisted the visitor.
"That's where the nests are," said Mr. Tasker," but I wasn't looking in at
the window. Besides, I noticed you always pulled the blind down when
you saw me looking, so I thought it didn't matter."
"We can't do anything without being followed about by that telescope,"
said Mr. Chalk, turning to the captain. "My wife had our house built
where it is on purpose, so that we shouldn't be overlooked. We didn't
bargain for a thing like that sprouting up in a back-garden."
"I'm very sorry," said the captain. "I wish you'd told me of it before. If I
catch you up there again," he cried, shaking his fist at Mr. Tasker,
"you'll remember it. Come down!"
Mr. Tasker, placing the glass under his arm, came slowly and
reluctantly down the ratlines.
"I wasn't looking in at the window, Mr. Chalk," he said, earnestly. "I
was watching the