"And I," said Mr. Cargreen, "am ditto to the incoming rector."
"And what do you get out of this visit?" asked Mr. Scantlebray, who was a frank man.
"Only three guineas as a fee," said Mr. Cargreen. "And you?"
"Ditto, old man—three guineas. You understand, I am not here as valuer to-day."
"Nor I—only as adviser."
"Exactly! Taste this port. 'Taint bad—out of the cellar of the old chap. Told auntie I must have it, to taste and give opinion on."
"And what are you going to do to-day?"
"I'm going to have one or two little things pulled down, and other little things put to rights."
"Humph! I'm here to see nothing is pulled down."
"We won't quarrel. There's the conservatory, and the linney in Willa Park."
"I don't know," said Cargreen, shaking his head.
"Now look here, old man," said Mr. Scantlebray. "You let me tear the linney down, and I'll let the conservatory stand."
"The conservatory——"
"I know; the casement of the best bedroom went through the roof of it. I'll mend the roof and repaint it. You can try the timber, and find it rotten, and lay on dilapidations enough to cover a new conservatory. Pass the linney; I want to make pickings out of that."
It may perhaps be well to let the reader understand the exact situation of the two men engaged in sipping port. Directly it was known that a rector had been nominated to S. Enodoc, Mr. Cargreen, a Bodmin valuer, agent, and auctioneer, had written to the happy nominee, Mr. Mules, of Birmingham, inclosing his card in the letter, to state that he was a member of an old-established firm, enjoying the confidence, not to say the esteem of the principal county families in the north of Cornwall, that he was a sincere Churchman, that deploring, as a true son of the Church, the prevalence of Dissent, he felt it his duty to call the attention of the reverend gentleman to certain facts that concerned him, but especially the Church, and facts that he himself, as a devoted son of the Church, on conviction, after mature study of its tenets, felt called upon, in the interest of
