Part 38 (2/2)

written different.”

”Give it time,” his master answered sadly. ”Maybe even that is a job that will get itself done one of these days.”

Cai and his bride had departed, and the Major faced the ordeal of Regatta Day with much trepidation. Heaven help him to play his part like a man!

But it appeared that the sightseers, who, as ever, began to pour into the town at nine in the morning and pa.s.sed the door in one steady, continuous stream until long past noonday, had either seen the Hymen Hospital before or were intent first on culling the more evanescent pleasures of the day. In fact, no visitor troubled him until one o'clock, when, in the lull between the starts of the sailing and the rowing races, and while the Regatta Committee was dining ash.o.r.e to the strains of a bra.s.s band, a farm labourer in his Sunday best, crowned with a sugar-loaf hat, entered, flung himself into a chair, and demanded to have a tooth extracted.

”You needn' mind which,” he added encouragingly; ”they all aches at times. Only don't let it be more than one, for I can't afford it.

I been countin' up how to lay out my money, an' I got sixpence over; an' it can't be in beer, because I promised the missus.”

The Major a.s.sured him that the extraction of a tooth or teeth did not fall within the sphere of the hospital's provision.

”W'y not?” asked the countryman, and added coaxingly, ”Just to pa.s.s the time, now!”

”Not even to pa.s.s the time,” the Major answered with firmness.

”Very well,” said the man resignedly. ”If you won't, you won't; but let's while it away somehow. Give me a black draught.”

At rare intervals from three o'clock till five other country folk dropped in, two or three (once even half a dozen) at a time.

As a show the Hymen Hospital and Museum appeared to have outlived its vogue. The male visitors, one and all, removed their hats on entering, and spoke in constrained tones as if in church.

To the Major's relief, no one asked him to recite from the book, and the questions put to him were of the simplest. A farm maiden from the country requested that the bust might be wound up.

”I beg your pardon?”

”You don't tell me there isn' no music inside!” the maiden exclaimed.

”What's it _for,_ then?”

With difficulty the Major explained the purpose and also the limits of statuary. The girl turned to her swain with a _moue_ of disgust.

”It's my belief,” she reproached him, ”you brought me here out of stinginess, pretending not to notice when we pa.s.sed the waxworks, which is only tuppence, and real murderers with their chests a-rising an' fallin', as Maria's young man treated her to a last Regatta; an'

a Sleepin' Beauty with a clockwork song inside like distant angels.”

But at five o'clock, or thereabouts, arrived no less a personage than Sir Felix Felix-Williams himself, gallantly escorting a couple of ladies whom he had piloted through the various rustic sights of the fair.

”O--oof!” panted Sir Felix, gaining the cool pa.s.sage and mopping his brow. ”A veritable haven of rest after the dust and din! Hallo, my good man, are you the caretaker for the day? I don't seem to recollect your face. . . . Eh? No? Well, show us round, please.

These ladies are curious to know something of our local hero.”

The Major, his wooden leg trembling, opened the door of the Museum.

The ladies put up their eye-gla.s.ses and gazed around, while Sir Felix dusted his coat.

”Hymen, his name was. That's his bust yonder,” Sir Felix explained, flicking at his collar with his handkerchief. ”A very decent body; a retired linen-draper, if I remember, from somewhere in the City, where he put together quite a tidy sum of money. Came home and spent it in his native town, where for years he was quite a big-wig.

But our friend here has a book about him, written up by the apothecary of the place. Isn't that so?” he appealed to the Major, who drew the doc.u.ment from his pocket with shaking fingers.

”Eh? I thought so,” went on Sir Felix. ”But spare us the long-winded pa.s.sages, my friend. Just a few particulars to satisfy the ladies, who, on this their first visit to Cornwall, are good enough to be inquisitive _a folie_ about us--about Troy especially.”

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