be
fighting and tearing to get in, I guess. I be much afeard."

"Well, 'first come, first served,' all the world over," said the comely
dame. "And you must put a good heart on the business and tie your
bonnet. I dare guess there are not much less than two hundred here. It's
grand tommy day you know. And for my part I don't care so much for a
good squeedge; one sees so many faces one knows."

"The cheese here at sixpence is pretty tidy," said a crone to her
companion; "but you may get as good in town for fourpence."

"What I complain is the weights," replied her companion. "I weighed my
pound of butter bought last tommy day, and it was two penny pieces too
light. Indeed! I have been, in my time, to all the shops about here, for
the lads or their father, but never knew tommy so bad as this. I have
two children at home ill from their flour; I have been very poorly
myself; one is used to a little white clay, but when they lay it on
thick, it's very grave."

"Are your girls in the pit?"

"No; we strive to keep them out, and my man has gone scores of days on
bread and water for that purpose; and if we were not forced to take
so much tommy, one might manage--but tommy will beat anything; Health
first, and honesty afterwards, that's my say."

"Well, for my part," said the crone, "meat's my grievance: all the best
bits go to the butties, and the pieces with bone in are chopped off for
the colliers' wives."

"Dame, when will the door open?" asked a very little palefaced boy.
"I have been here all this morn, and never broke my fast."

"And what do you want, chilt?"

"I want a loaf for mother; but I don't feel I shall ever get home again,
I'm all in a way so dizzy."

"Liza Gray," said a woman with black beady eyes and a red nose, speaking
in a sharp voice and rushing up to a pretty slatternly woman in a straw
bonnet with a dirty fine ribbon, and a babe at her breast; "you know the
person I'm looking for."

"Well, Mrs Mullins, and how do you do?" she replied, "in a sweet sawney
tone."

"How do you do, indeed! How are people to do in these bad times?"

"They is indeed hard Mrs Mullins. If you could see my tommy book! How
I wish I knew figures! Made up as of last Thursday night by that little
divil, Master Joe Diggs. He has stuck it in here and stuck it in there,
till it makes one all of a-maze. I'm sure I never had the things; and
my man is out of all patience, and says I can no more keep house than a
natural born."