The Mayor of Troy

The Mayor of Troy, by Sir
Arthur Thomas

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Thomas Quiller-Couch
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Title: The Mayor of Troy
Author: Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Release Date: November 10, 2006 [eBook #19751]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
MAYOR OF TROY***
E-text prepared by Lionel Sear

THE MAYOR OF TROY.

by
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch.
1906 This e-text prepared from a reprint of a version published in 1906.

TO MY FRIEND KENNETH GRAHAM AND THE REST OF THE
CREW OF THE "RICHARD AND EMILY" AND WITH
APOLOGIES TO THE MAYOR OF LOSTWITHIEL A BOROUGH
FOR WHICH I HAVE (WITH CAUSE) MUCH AFFECTION AND A
VERY HIGH ESTEEM.

CONTENTS.
Chapter.
PROLOGUE.
I. OUR MAJOR.
II. OUR MAYOR.
III. THE MILLENNIUM.
IV. HOW THE TROY GALLANTS CHALLENGED THE LOOE
DIEHARDS.
V. INTERFERENCE OF A GUERNSEY MERCHANT.
VI. MALBROUCK S'EN VA.
VII. THE BATTLE OF TALLAND COVE.
VIII. "COME, MY CORINNA, COME!"
IX. BY LERRYN WATER.

X. GUNNER SOBEY TURNS LOOSE THE MILLENNIUM.
XI. THE MAJOR LEAVES US.
XII. A COLD DOUCHE ON A HOT FIT.
XIII. A VERY HOT PRESS.
XIV. THE "VESUVIUS" BOMB.
XV. UP-CHANNEL.
XVI. FAREWELL TO ALBION!
XVII. MISSING!
XVIII. APOTHEOSIS.
XIX. THE RETURN.
XX. IN WHICH THE MAJOR LEARNS THAT NO MAN IS
NECESSARY.
XXI. FACES IN WATER.
XXII. WINDS UP WITH A MERRY-GO-ROUND.

THE MAYOR OF TROY.

PROLOGUE.
Good wine needs no bush; but this story has to begin with an apology.
Years ago I promised myself to write a treatise on the lost Mayors of
Cornwall--dignitaries whose pleasant fame is now night, recalled only
by some neat byword or proverb current in the Delectable (or as a

public speaker pronounced it the other day, the Dialectable) Duchy.
Thus you may hear of "the Mayor of Falmouth, who thanked God when
the town jail was enlarged"; "the Mayor of Market Jew, sitting in his
own light"; "the Mayor of Tregoney, who could read print upside-down,
but wasn't above being spoken to"; "the Mayor of Calenick, who
walked two miles to ride one"; "the Mayor of East Looe, who called the
King of England 'Brother.'" Everyone remembers the stately prose in
which Gibbon records when and how he determined on his great
masterpiece, when and how he completed it. "It was at Rome: on the
15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol,
while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of
Jupiter, that the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the City first
started in my mind." So I could tell with circumstance when, where and
how I first proposed my treatise; and shall, perhaps, when I have
concluded it. But life is short; and for the while my readers may be
amused with an instalment.
Now of all the Mayors of Cornwall the one who most engaged my
speculation, yet for a long while baffled all research, was "the Mayor of
Troy, so popular that the town made him Ex-Mayor the year
following."
Of course, if you don't know Troy, you will miss half the reason of my
eagerness. Simple, egregious, adorable town! Shall I go on here to sing
its praises? No; not yet.
The reason why I could learn nothing concerning him is that, soon after
1832, when the Reform Bill did away with Troy's Mayor and
Corporation, as well as with its two Members of Parliament, someone
made a bonfire of all the Borough records. O Alexandria! And the man
said at the time that he did it for fun!
This brings me to yet another Mayor--the Mayor of Lestiddle, who is a
jolly good fellow.
Nothing could be handsomer than my calling the Mayor of Lestiddle a
jolly good fellow; for in fact we live at daggers drawn. You must know
that Troy, a town of small population (two thousand or so) but of great

character and importance, stands at the mouth of a river where it
widens into a harbour singularly beautiful and frequented by ships of
all nations; and that seven miles up this river, by a bridge where the salt
tides cease, stands Lestiddle, a town of fewer inhabitants and of no
character or importance at all. Now why the Reform Bill, which
sheared Troy of its ancient dignities, should have left Lestiddle's
untouched, is a question no man can answer me; but this I know, that
its Mayor goes flourishing about with a silver mace shaped like