"But he never lives ashore. He is nearly always in his yacht with his son the Marquis of Southwold."
"Of course. It is aboard ship I always read to Regi and Southwold. Reading is all very well in the day, but I tell you it is no little difficulty to read by the light of a swinging lamp when a ship is lying at anchor and rolling. Where did this accident happen, Whiteshaw?"
"By Jove, it must be this smash I saw. I was just passing along, but took little or no notice, as at the time I was explaining some matters of court etiquette to Lady Evelina de Lacy, who is to be presented this year."
"It has never struck me before, Cheyne, that your name is the same as that of the Shropshire family. Can it be that you are related to it?"
"No, no. It is merely a coincidence. The name is not uncommon. My father was a poor gentleman, with no pretensions to blood-connection with a ducal house. Good-day, Whiteshaw."
"Good-day, Cheyne," cried out the carriage-builder; adding mentally: "There goes the greatest and the most harmless liar in London."
Anerly is one of the smallest villages in Devonshire. It, in fact, does not rise to the dignity of a village, but is called one, rather out of objection to use the more unfamiliar word hamlet than its own particular claims. Such as it is, it stands at cross-roads, and although the resident population is small, many wayfarers of all degrees pass through it by day, not a few of whom draw up at the Beagle Inn--the only one in the place--to taste the cider, for which that house is famous all through the district. In Anerly there is a theory that a good-sized lump of bread and a good-sized piece of cheese and a pint of The Beagle cider form a repast at which the Emperor of China's nose would cease to turn up.
In dwelling thus on the cider, it must not be supposed other things at The Beagle were not of good quality. As a matter of fact, The Beagle prided itself on keeping nothing which was not of the very first quality. But the cider was what capped the climax, and gave a tone to the whole. In addition to the excellence of the cider, The Beagle had another great attraction: it was very favourably situated, and there was no window or door of it from which you could not see a quiet, soothing little landscape.