ey was bloomin' vegetables." The set periods are
practically reduced to three, for few care to face the inconvenience of
a Christmas move.

Once upon a time family removals were leisurely affairs, which the
contractors took care to spread over many days; now, however, moving is
a matter of contract, or, as Bindle himself expressed it, "Yer 'as to
carry a bookcase under one arm, a spring-mattress under the other, a
pianner on yer back, and then they wonders why yer ain't doin'
somethink wi' yer teeth."

All these things conspired to make Bindle's living a precarious one.
He was not lazy, and sought work assiduously. In his time he had
undertaken many strange jobs, his intelligence and ready wit giving him
an advantage over his competitors; but if his wit gained for him
employment, his unconquerable desire to indulge in his "little jokes"
almost as frequently lost it for him.

As the jobs became less frequent Mrs. Bindle waxed more eloquent. To
her a man who was not working was "a brute" or a "lazy hound." She
made no distinction between the willing and the unwilling, and she
heaped the fire of her burning reproaches upon the head of her luckless
"man" whenever he was unable to furnish her with a full week's
housekeeping.

Bindle was not lazy enough to be unpopular with his superiors, or
sufficiently energetic to merit the contempt of his fellow-workers. He
did his job in average time, and strove to preserve the middle course
that should mean employment and pleasant associates.

"Lorst yer job?" was a frequent interrogation on the lips of Mrs.
Bindle.

At first Bindle had striven to parry this inevitable question with a
pleasantry; but he soon discovered that his wife was impervious to his
most brilliant efforts, and he learned in time to shroud his
degradation in an impenetrable veil of silence.

Only in the hour of prosperity would he preserve his verbal
cheerfulness.

"She thinks too much o' soap an' 'er soul to make an 'owlin' success o'
marriage," he had once confided to a mate over a pint of beer. "A
little dirt an' less religion might keep 'er out of 'eaven in the next
world, but it 'ud keep me out of 'ell in this!"

Mrs. Bindle was obsessed with two ogres: Dirt and the Devil. Her
cleanliness was the cleanliness that rendered domestic comfort
impossible, just as her godliness was the godliness of suffering in
this world and glory in the next.

Her faith was the faith of negation. The happiness