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man’s apologies.
    ‘Matters of propriety and dignity do not engage me,’ he would say. ‘I have not weathered storms at sea in my passage here to Wherrytown to benefit from local courtesies and
etiquettes or to test your manners, good or ill. We are plain men, I think, and plainly spoken. Indeed, I already have experience that you can speak your mind. So, sir, you will not take amiss the
unhappy news that I must give to you. You may not know of it, but the industry of a Monsieur Nicolas Leblanc, a Frenchman, has made a mark on yours. And you, for all my efforts in your name, must
be the poorer for it.’ Aymer could imagine the hunted, baffled, deferential look on Howells’s face as the bad news encircled him and taunted him but would not give its name until the
Lecture nearly was complete. ‘I think your already spoken view,’ Aymer could conclude, ‘that I am little use to you assumes a sharper meaning now.’ Mr Howells would have no
repartee for that. Aymer’s Duty would be done. Then there would be time to eat a country meal (with the Norris couple as his guests, perhaps; he really was determined to scrape acquaintance
with them), to sleep well at the nameless inn and to take the return Sunday passage on the Tar . What further obligations could he have in Wherrytown?
    He would, he thought, find Mr Norris and his wife, to enquire if they would like to share his dinner table. He had information on the topography of Canada that they would benefit from hearing,
and some advice, too, on Self-Reliance. He took some soap for Katie Norris. Five bars. He imagined they’d serve her well on her long sea voyage. Perhaps she’d save one as a keepsake of
her mother country, stored beneath the crapes and linens of her clothes drawer, in the timber bedroom of her cabin, on the virgin land, deep in Canada. Perhaps she’d wash her hair in
Smith’s Fine Soap.
    The thought of Katie Norris with her hair in suds hastened Aymer, but his bedroom door was opened before he could reach it. Mrs Yapp came in with sheets and bolster cloths.
    ‘You shouldn’t give no thought to Walter Howells,’ she said. ‘He didn’t know that you were Smith & Sons, the soap. He’ll be back and limping like his
horse when he finds out.’
    ‘I would not waste a second thinking of it, Mrs Yapp.’
    ‘There, then, there’s no harm done.’ She set about making up Aymer’s bed. ‘We’ll get you comfortable,’ she said, ‘and then I’ll have to
shift them other beds. You heard what Walter said. We’ve boatloads coming here and it’ll be a squeeze to find the rooms for them. Those Norrises will have to share, or sleep out in the
corridor. I can’t be bothered with a fuss. You should’ve seen his wife when I explained. The blushes on that girl! You’d think I’d asked her to share a bale of hay with
horses. I said, “You don’t get private rooms for what you’re paying me, not when there’s other guests to satisfy.” Still, it’ll be a taste of Canadee for
her.’
    ‘You mean she’ll have to share a room with sailing men?’
    ‘There’s nothing wrong with sailing men except they’re rough.’
    ‘For how long will this be?’
    ‘Well, here’s the pattern to it, Mr Smith. The Norrises have passages aboard a ship that’s called the Belle of … some place I forget, and that’s the one
that’s beached along the coast at Dry Manston. If they can get her off the bar and seaworthy and she’s not broken up for firewood, then the Norrises can leave and be in Canadee within
the two months.’
    ‘If not?’
    ‘If not, the Norrises will have to share a room until they find another ship, or turn around and go back home, wherever that might be.’
    ‘It is not thinkable that they should share, even for one night.’
    ‘They’ve not the choice. I’ll not have shipwrecked men sleep in the street or in the stables. This isn’t Bethlehem. It’s damp and cold out there. I never heard that
blushes did more harm than