u weathercock, you. You only want me to go out, that
you may have an opportunity to play with Tib."

"Tib? Who is Tib?" asked Hodge as he stretched out his long neck
from under the table, and stared at Gammer Gurton with well-assumed
astonishment.

"Now this otter wants me yet to tell him who Tib is!" screamed the
exasperated dame. "Well, then, I will tell you. Tib is the cook for the
major-domo over there--a black-eyed, false, coquettish little devil, who
is bad and mean enough to troll away the lover of an honest and virtuous
woman, as I am; a lover who is such a pitiful little thing that one
would think no one but myself could find him out and see him; nor could
I have done it had I not for forty years trained my eyes to the search,
and for forty years looked around for the man who was at length to marry
me, and make me a respectable mistress. Since my eyes then were at last
steadily fixed on this phantom of man, and I found nothing there, I
finally discovered you, you cobweb of a man!"

"What! you call me a cobweb?" screamed Hodge, as he crept from under
the table, and, drawing himself up to his full height, placed himself
threateningly in front of Gammer Gurton's elbow-chair. "You call me a
cobweb? Now, I swear to you that you shall henceforth never more be
the spider that dwells in that web! For you are a garden-spider, an
abominable, dumpy, old garden-spider, for whom a web, such as Hodge is,
is much too fine and much too elegant. Be quiet, therefore, old spider,
and spin your net elsewhere! You shall not live in my net, but Tib--for,
yes, I do know Tib. She is a lovely, charming child of fourteen, as
quick and nimble as a kid, with lips red as the coral which you wear on
your fat pudding of a neck, with eyes which shine yet brighter than your
nose, and with a figure so slender and graceful that she might have
been carved out of one of your fingers. Yes, yes, I know Tib. She is an
affectionate, good child, who would never be so hard-hearted as to
abuse the man she loves, and could not be so mean and pitiful, even in
thought, as to wish to marry the man she did not love. Just because he
is a man. Yes, I know Tib, and now I will go straight to her and ask her
if she will marry a good, honest lad, who, to be sure, is somewhat lean,
but who doubtless will become fatter if he has any other fare than the
meagre, abominable stuff on which Gammer Gurton feeds him; a lad who, to
be sure, is blear-eyed, but will soon get