just like _so_. She'd a-put the question in idleness, an' in idleness I
answered it. Will you believe it?--between twelve and one in the morning
I woke up with my head full o' figgers. Not another wink o' sleep could I
get, neither. Soon as ever I shook up the bolster an' settled down for
another try, I see'd myself whiskin' back and forth over this here piece
o' water like a piston-rod in a steamship, and off I started countin' for
dear life. Count? I tell you it lasted for nights, and by the end o' the
week I had to see the doctor about it. I was losin' flesh. Doctor, he
gave me a bottle o' trade--very flat-tasted stuff it was, price half a
crown, with a sediment if you let it stand; and after a few days the
trouble wore off. They tell me there's a new pupil teacher up to the
school can answer questions like that while you're countin' his buttons.
I've seen the fellow: a pigeon-chested poor creatur', with his calves put
on the wrong way. I'd a mind to tell 'en that with figgers, as with other
walks o' life, a man's first business is to look after his own.
But I didn't like to, he looked so harmless. Puttin' one thing with
another, Peter Benny, I'd advise you to leave these speckilations alone.
Be it a thousand times or ten thousand, there's only one time that counts
--the last; and only the Lord A'mighty knows when that'll be."

Mr. Benny sighed. "When the Lord sets a man free of his labour, Nicky,
He does it gently. But we have to deal with an earthly master, we two,
and his mercies aren't so gentle."

Nicky Vro nodded. "You'm thinkin' of they two poor souls up the hill.
A proper tyrant Mister Sam can be, and so I told that ugly-featured boy of
his, when I put Mrs. Trevarthen across this mornin'. 'Twas a shame, too,
to lose my temper with the cheeld; for a cat couldn't help laughin'--
supposin' he wasn't the partickler cat consarned." The old man told the
story, chuckling wheezily.

"You went too far, Nicky. I have the best reasons for knowing that you
went too far. Now listen to me. As soon as you get back, hitch up your
boat, walk straight up to Hall, and tell Mr. Sam that you're sorry."

"Well, so I am in a way, though the fellow do turn my stomach.
Still there wasn' no sense in rappin' out on the boy."

"It doesn't help the old woman, you know," said Mr. Benny, and sighed
again, bethinking himself how vain had been his own protest.

"Not a bit," assented Mr. Vro cheerfully. "Well, I'll go