Sometimes his bad memory, and the quick transitions of allegiance through which he was called upon to pass, made him forget his _role_, and condole with Dick on Heathcote's piety, or with Heathcote on Dick's poverty of spirit; and sometimes, when, in the company of the one, he happened to meet the other, he quite lost his head and made an ass of himself to both.
This course of double dissimulation at the end of a week began to lose its charms, and Coote, with all his good nature and desire to make things pleasant for everybody, began to get tired of his two friends and long for a breath of freedom.
So he took an early morning stroll along the cliffs one morning, finishing up with Mr Webster's shop in the High Street.
The gossiping Templeton stationer had suffered somewhat in temper since the reader saw him last, three months ago.

The young gentry for whom he catered were not the "apples of his eyes" they had been.

Not that he was at open war with them, but he had a grievance.
He didn't complain of the liberties they sometimes took with his shop-- making it a general house of call and discussion forum.

That was good for trade, and Mr Webster didn't object to anything that was good for trade.

Nor did the occasional horse-play, and even fighting, that took place on his premises now and then sour his milk of human kindness more than was natural.