Deal yesterday, and with this ere wind he will be up at
the docks to-morrow; so off I goes. He's been away nigh eighteen
months; and I know what men is. Why, bless you, if I wasn't there to
meet him when he steps ashore, as likely as not he would meet with
friends and go on the spree, and I shouldn't hear of him for a week;
and a nice hole that would make in his earnings. Young man, you are
scrouging me dreadful! Can't you get a little further along."

"It seems to me, ma'am, that it is you who are scrouging me," Ralph
replied. "This rail is almost cutting into my side now."

"Well, we must live and let live!" the woman said philosophically.
"You may thank your stars nature hasn't made you as big as I am.
Little people have their advantages. But we can't have everything our
own way. That's what I tells my Jim; he is always a-wanting to have
his own way. That comes from being a captain; but, as I tells him,
it's only reasonable as he is captain on board his ship I should be
captain in my house. I suppose you are going to school?"

"No, I am not. My school is just over."

"Going all the way up to London?"

"Yes."

"That's a mercy," the woman said. "I was afraid you might be only
going as far as Canterbury, and then I might have got some big chap up
here who would squeeze me as flat as a pancake. Men is so
unthoughtful, and seems to think as women can stow themselves away
anywheres. I wish you would feel and get your hand in my pocket, young
man. I can't do it nohow, and I ain't sure that I have got my keys
with me; and that girl Eliza will be getting at the bottles and
a-having men in, and then there will be a nice to-do with the lodgers.
Can't you find it? It is in the folds somewhere."

"With much difficulty Ralph found the pocket-hole, and thrusting his
hand in was able to reassure his neighbor by feeling among a mass of
odds and ends a bunch of keys.

"That's a comfort," the woman said. "If one's mind isn't at ease one
can't enjoy traveling."

"I wish my body was at ease," Ralph said. "Don't you think you could
squeeze them a little on the other side and give me an inch or two
more room?"

"I will try," the woman said; "as you seem a civil sort of boy."

Whereupon she gave two or three heaves, which relieved Ralph greatly,
but involved her in an altercation with her neighbor on the other
side, which lasted till the towers of Canterbury came in sight. Here
they changed horses at the Fountain Inn.

"Loo