“I bet this one’s a Tartar.”

“How can you tell that?”

“I can tell it by his style, which is very severe and uncompromising.”

“His style,” I said, “is as the statute made it, and mustn’t be impugned by us.”

“I particularly like that bit about plashing the trees.  How in the name of all that’s English do you plash a tree?”

“If,” I said, “you were a fountain and wanted to be poetical, you would plash, instead of splashing.”

“That’s nonsense,” she said.

“No,” I said, “it’s poetry.”

“But you don’t pour poetry on overhanging trees.  It must mean something else.”

“I’ll tell you what; we’ll get a dictionary.”

“Yes,” she said, “you get it.  I’m no good at dictionaries.  I always find such a lot of fascinating words that I never get to the one I want.”

“I’m rather like that myself,” I said.  “However I’ll exercise self-restraint.  Here you are:  Packthread, Pastime, Pin—­there’s a lot about Pin—­Plash.  Got it!  It means ’to bend down and interweave the branches or twigs of.’”

“Now,” she said, “we know what Mr. Bradish wants.”

“He’s a very arbitrary man,” I said.  “How can he expect Harry Penruddock to bend down and interweave the branches or twigs of?”

“Anyway, Harry’s got to do it, whether he understands it or not.”

“Yes,” I said, “borough surveyors take no denials.  And now that you’ve had your lesson in English, you can go and see the cook.”

“Half a mo’,” she said; “I’m acquiring a lot of useful information about ‘Plaster.’  I never knew—­”

“Hurry up,” I said, “or we shan’t get any lunch.”

R.C.L.

* * * * *

DERELICT.

(Notices to Mariners.  North Atlantic Ocean.  Derelict reported.)

  “We left ’er ’eaded for Lord knows where, in latitude forty-nine,
  With a cargo o’ deals from Puget Sound, an’ ’er bows blown out by a mine;
  I seen ’er just as the dark come down—­I seen ‘er floatin’ still,
  An’ I ’ope them deals’d let her sink afore so long,” said Bill.

  “It warn’t no use to stand by ’er—­she could neither sail nor steer—­
  With the biggest part of a thousand mile between ’er and Cape Clear;
  The sea was up to ‘er waterways an’ gainin’ fast below,
  But I’d like to know she went to ’er rest as a ship’s a right to go.

  “For it’s bitter ’ard on a decent ship, look at it ’ow you may,
  That’s worked her traverse an’ stood ‘er trick an’ done ’er best in ’er day,
  To be driftin’ around like a nine-days-drowned on the Western Ocean swell,
  With never a hand to reef an’ furl an’ steer an’ strike the bell.

  “No one to tend ‘er binnacle lamps an’ light ’er masthead light,
  Or scour ‘er plankin’ or scrape ‘er seams when the days are sunny an’ bright;
  No one to sit on the hatch an’ yarn an’ smoke when work is done,
  An’ say, ‘That gear wants reevin’ new some fine dogwatch, my son.’