"Ay, ay, Aunt Bridget--but I get the start of you, though you probably
were born a week before-hand: talk of parsons, look at me, a regular
grand pluralist monopolist, as any bishop can be; butler in doors,
bailiff out of doors, land-steward, house-steward, cellar-man, and
pay-master. I am not all this for naught, Aunt Quarles: if so much goes
through my fingers, it is but fair that something stick."

"True, Simon--O certainly; but if you come to boasting, my boy, I don't
carry this big bunch o' keys for nothing neither. Lord love you! why
merely for cribbings in the linen-line for one month, John Draper
swapped me that there shawl: none o' my clothes ever cost me a penny,
and I a'n't quite as bare as a new-born baby neither. Look at them
trunks, bless you!"

"Ay, ay, aunt, I'll be bound the printer of your prayer-book has left
out a 'not,' before the 'steal,' eh?--ha! ha!"

"Fie, naughty Simon, fie! them's not stealings, them's parquisites.
Where's the good o' living in a great house else? But come, Si, haven't
you struck out the 'not,' for yourself, though the printer did his duty,
eh, Nep?"

"Not a bit, aunt--not a bit: all sheer honesty and industry. Look at my
pretty little truck-shop down the village. Wo betide the labourer that
leaves off dealing there! not one that works at Hurstley, but eats my
bread and bacon; besides the 'tea, coffee, tobacco, and snuff.'"

"Pretty fairish articles, eh? I never dealt with you, Si: no, Nep,
no--you never saw the colour o' my money."

Jennings gave a start, as if a thought had pricked him; but gayly
recovering himself, said,

"Oh, as to pretty fairish, I know there is one thing about the bacon
good enough; ay, and the bread too--the very best of prices; ha! ha! is
not that good? And for the other genuine articles, I don't know that
much of the tea comes from China--and the coffee is sold ground, because
it is burnt maize--and there's a plenty of wholesome cabbage leaf cut up
in the tobacco--while as for snuff, I give them a dry, peppery, choky,
sneezy dust, and I dare say that it does its duty."

It was astonishing how innocently the worthy couple laughed together.

"My only trouble, Aunt Quarles, is where to keep my gains--what to do
with them. I am quite driven to the strong-box system, interest is so
bad; and as to speculations, they are nervous things, and sicken one. I
invest in the Great Western one day--a tunnel falls in, so I sell my
shares the next, and s