The Riding Officer thought this a highly amusing story, and would often twit Mr.Pennefather with it.

But Mr.
Pennefather could never see the joke, and would plead,-- "Well, but he _was_ an honest man, wasn't he ?" "That's the way with you Cornish," repeated Mr.Smellie; "and after a time one learns to feel it in the air, so to speak." The little Collector looked up from his ledger, pushing his spectacles high on his brow, and glanced vaguely around the office.
"Now, for my part, I detect nothing unusual," said he.
"Furthermore," the Riding Officer went on, still tapping his boot, "I met a suspicious-looking fellow yesterday on the Falmouth Road; a deucedly suspicious-looking fellow; a fellow that answered me with a strong French accent when I spoke to him, as I made it my business to do.

He had Guernsey merchant written all over him." "Tattooed ?" asked Mr.Pennefather, without looking up from the ledger in which he had buried himself anew.

"I had no idea they went to such lengths.

.