Worm, for example, was deaf. His deafness took
an unusual form; he heard fish frying in his head, and he was not
reticent upon the subject of his infirmity. He usually described
himself by the epithet 'wambling,' and protested that he would never
pay the Lord for his making,--a degree of self-knowledge which many
have arrived at but few have the courage to confess. He was once
observed in the act of making himself 'passing civil and friendly by
overspreading his face with a large smile that seemed to have no
connection with the humor he was in.' Sympathy because of his deafness
elicited this response: 'Ay, I assure you that frying o' fish is going
on for nights and days. And, you know, sometimes 'tisn't only fish,
but rashers o' bacon and inions. Ay, I can hear the fat pop and fizz
as nateral as life.'

He was questioned as to what means of cure he had tried.

'Oh, ay bless ye, I've tried everything. Ay, Providence is a merciful
man, and I have hoped he'd have found it out by this time, living so
many years in a parson's family, too, as I have; but 'a don't seem to
relieve me. Ay, I be a poor wambling man, and life's a mint o'
trouble.'

One knows not which to admire the more, the appetizing realism in
William Worm's account of his infirmity, or the primitive state of his
theological views which allowed him to look for special divine favor
by virtue of the ecclesiastical conspicuousness of his late residence.

Hardy must have heard, with comfort in the thought of its literary
possibilities, the following dialogue on the cleverness of women. It
occurs in the last chapter of _The Woodlanders_. A man who is always
spoken of as the 'hollow-turner,' a phrase obviously descriptive of
his line of business, which related to wooden bowls, spigots,
cheese-vats, and funnels, talks with John Upjohn.

'What women do know nowadays!' he says. 'You can't deceive 'em as you
could in my time.'

'What they knowed then was not small,' said John Upjohn. 'Always a
good deal more than the men! Why, when I went courting my wife that is
now, the skillfulness that she would show in keeping me on her pretty
side as she walked was beyond all belief. Perhaps you've noticed that
she's got a pretty side to her face as well as a plain one?'

'I can't say I've noticed it particular much,' said the hollow-turner
blandly.

'Well,' continued Upjohn, not disconcerted, 'she has. All women under
the sun be prettier one side than t'other. And, as I