Mr. Brisher

Mr. Brisher — Ledbetter in the tale's own telling — is a schoolmaster in orders, dishevelled, bespectacled, and quietly astonished at his own life, taking a summer rest at Hithergate-on-Sea. Over whisky he joins a talkative stranger in lamenting that courage and adventure have vanished from a policed and railwayed world, then walks out alone to test the boast against his own nerve. His gap between professed daring and actual timidity is the comic engine of the story, and the treasure he stumbles toward tests exactly the bravery he claimed to miss.