To Mr.Smellie, we of Troy had been at first but as children at play by the sea; in earnest over games so infantile as to excite his wondering disdain.

He wondered yet; but insensibly--as might happen to a man astray in fairyland--his disdain had taken a tinge of fear.

Behind "the children sporting on the shore," his ear had begun to catch the voice of unknown waters rolling.

They came, so to speak, along the sands, these children; innocent seeming, hilariously intent on their make-believe; and then, on a sudden, not once but a dozen times, he had found himself tricked, duped, tripped up and cast on his back; to rise unhurt, indeed, but clutching at impalpable air while the empty beach rang with teasing laughter.
It baffled him the more because, of his own sort, he had a strong sense of humour.

It was told of Mr.Pennefather, for instance, that during his clerkship at Penzance the Custom House there had been openly defied by John Carter, the famous smuggler of Prussia Cove; that once, when Carter was absent on an expedition, the Excise officers had plucked up heart, ransacked the Cove, carried off a cargo of illicit goods and locked it up in the Custom House; that John Carter on his return, furious at the news of his loss, had marched over to Penzance under cover of darkness, broken in the Custom House and carried off his goods again; and that Mr.
Pennefather next morning, examining the rifled stores, had declared the nocturnal visitor to be John Carter beyond a doubt, because Carter was an honest man and wouldn't take anything that didn't belong to him.