again and says, 'Mr. Perryman, you've been took in. Twelve-and-six
would have been more than enough for that 'at.' 'Oh,' says I to myself,
'you've been nosing round already, 'ave you?' I suppose I must have
looked a bit foolish like--I'm sure I felt it,--but she didn't give me
no time to speak. 'Wouldn't you like to have that guinea back in your
pocket?' says she, putting a funny sound on the 'guinea.' 'Yes,' I says;
'and, what's more, I mean to get it back.' 'Oh indeed,' says she, and a
look come into her face as though she was putting two and two together.
After a bit she says, 'Mr. Perryman, was that your trap that drove by
about half-past seven last night?' 'Yes,' I says; and I might have known
from that minute she was going to do a down on me.

"However, I'd made up my mind how I was goin' to get that money back,
and I wasn't goin' to change for nobody. You must understand there's a
weekly offertory in our church. There was a lot of objection when Parson
started it years ago. But, you see, he's always been a bit 'Igh." ("Much
too High for me," here interposed Mrs. Perryman.) "Yes, I've warned him
about it several times. 'Mr. Abel,' I says to him, 'you're 'Igh enough
already. Now, you take my advice, and don't you get no 'Igher.' That was
when he started the offertory.

"Well, I'm the sort of man that when I gives, I gives. Ever since the
offertory was begun my missis puts a two-shillin' piece into the
waistcoat-pocket of my Sunday suit--don't you, Sally?" (Sally
nodded)--"regular every Monday morning when she brushes my clothes, so
there's no doubt about its being there when Sunday comes. That's for
collection.

"And now you can understand my plan. I'd made up to give one shillin'
instead o' two, Sunday by Sunday, till I'd paid for my new box-hat.
That's how I was goin' to get even with the Church.

"I kep' it up regular for twelve weeks, counting 'em off one by one. I
didn't bother about the sixpence. Meanwhile two or three other farmers,
not wanting to be put in the shade by me--or more likely it was their
missises--had begun to wear box-hats o' Sunday. There was Tom Henderson,
who's no more fit to wear a box-hat than his bull is; and there was old
Charley Shott--know him?--a man with a wonderful appetite for pig-meat
is old Charley Shott. It would ha' made you die o' laughin' to see old
Charley come shufflin' up the church just like this" (here the farmer
executed an imitative _pas seul_), "sit down in his s