"Now hearken to me, you two!"

The Admiral, fixing a severe eye on them, started to read them a
lesson on married life, with its daily discipline, its constant
obligation of mutual forbearance. For a confirmed bachelor, he did
it remarkably well; but it must be recorded that this was not by any
means his first essay in lecturing discordant spouses from the Bench.
Lord Rattley, whose own matrimonial ventures had been (like Mr.
Weller's researches in London) extensive and peculiar, leaned back
and followed the discourse with appreciation, his elbows resting on
the arms of his chair, his finger-tips delicately pressed together,
his gaze pensively tracking the motions of a bumblebee that had
strayed in at an open window and was battering its head against the
dusty pane of a closed one.

Just then the Admiral, warming to his theme, pushed back his chair a
few inches. . . .

For some days previously a stream of traction-engines had passed
along the high road, dragging timber-wagons, tent-wagons, machinery,
exhibits of all kinds, towards the Tregarrick Show. This heavy
traffic (it was afterwards surmised) had helped what Wordsworth calls
"the unimaginable touch of Time," shaking the dry-rotted joists of
Scawns House, and preparing the catastrophe.

The Admiral was a heavy-weight. He rode, in those days, at close
upon seventeen stone. As he thrust back his chair, there came from
the floor beneath--from the wall immediately behind him--an ominous,
rending sound. The hind legs of his chair sank slowly, the seat of