“This,” he remarked, eyeing the damsel with enquiry, “appears to me to be a very quiet place.”

“Quiet!” exclaimed the lady.  “Quiet?”

“That,” continued Spargo, “is precisely what I observed.  Quiet.  I see that you agree with me.  You expressed your agreement with two shades of emphasis, the surprised and the scornful.  We may conclude, thus far, that the place is undoubtedly quiet.”

The damsel looked at Spargo as if she considered him in the light of a new specimen, and picking up her needlework she quitted the bar and coming out into the room took a chair near his own.

“It makes you thankful to see a funeral go by here,” she remarked.  “It’s about all that one ever does see.”

“Are there many?” asked Spargo.  “Do the inhabitants die much of inanition?”

The damsel gave Spargo another critical inspection.

“Oh, you’re joking!” she said.  “It’s well you can.  Nothing ever happens here.  This place is a back number.”

“Even the back numbers make pleasant reading at times,” murmured Spargo.  “And the backwaters of life are refreshing.  Nothing doing in this town, then?” he added in a louder voice.

“Nothing!” replied his companion.  “It’s fast asleep.  I came here from Birmingham, and I didn’t know what I was coming to.  In Birmingham you see as many people in ten minutes as you see here in ten months.”

“Ah!” said Spargo.  “What you are suffering from is dulness.  You must have an antidote.”

“Dulness!” exclaimed the damsel.  “That’s the right word for Market Milcaster.  There’s just a few regular old customers drop in here of a morning, between eleven and one.  A stray caller looks in—­perhaps —­during the afternoon.  Then, at night, a lot of old fogies sit round that end of the room and talk about old times.  Old times, indeed!—­what they want in Market Milcaster is new times.”

Spargo pricked up his ears.

“Well, but it’s rather interesting to hear old fogies talk about old times,” he said.  “I love it!”

“Then you can get as much of it as ever you want here,” remarked the barmaid.  “Look in tonight any time after eight o’clock, and if you don’t know more about the history of Market Milcaster by ten than you did when you sat down, you must be deaf.  There are some old gentlemen drop in here every night, regular as clockwork, who seem to feel that they couldn’t go to bed unless they’ve told each other stories about old days which I should think they’ve heard a thousand times already!”

“Very old men?” asked Spargo.

“Methuselahs,” replied the lady.  “There’s old Mr. Quarterpage, across the way there, the auctioneer, though he doesn’t do any business now—­they say he’s ninety, though I’m sure you wouldn’t take him for more than seventy.  And there’s Mr. Lummis, further down the street—­he’s eighty-one.  And Mr. Skene, and Mr. Kaye—­they’re regular patriarchs.  I’ve sat here and listened to them till I believe I could write a history of Market Milcaster since the year One.”