e; and
people are so kind that every one comes to me, sooner or later.'

I experienced a desire to do something graceful and chivalrous, and
did nothing, I suspect, but grin awkwardly and shuffle my toes in the
dust. It seemed to me clumsy and rude to stand erect before this
crippled little lady, yet impossible to adopt any other attitude. Mr.
Perkins had subsided, softly as a down cushion, on the edge of the
verandah. But he had no angles, and I had no curves. Mr. Perkins
removed his hat and caressingly polished that glistening orb, his
head, with a large rainbow-hued handkerchief.

'You see, Insect,' he said, beaming upon his wife, 'this young feller,
Nickperry, an orphantual lad, as I explained, has taken a fancy to
Dursley.'

'And you've taken a fancy to Nickperry, I suppose--as you call him.'

The master waved his fat arms to demonstrate his aloofness from
fancies. 'Well, we want a new handy lad,' he said; 'and this
peripatacious young chap comes strolling along just as Bella wants
milking. The Gabbitual one says he's all right.' This is an elaborate
stage aside.

'And how did Bella behave, Nick?' asked the mistress.

'She gave down her milk very nicely--madam,' I said, conscious of a
blush over the matter of addressing this little lady.

'Merely a passing weakness for the servileacious, inherited from
feudalising ancestors,' said Mr. Perkins in an explanatory tone to his
wife. And then to me: 'This is Missis Perkins, Nickperry, not "Madam."
When you want to speak to the Missis, you must always come and find
her, because she don't get about much, do you, Pig-an'-Whistle?'

One of the points of difference between husband and wife, in their
spoken whimsicalities, was that the man had no sense of shame and the
wife had. Mr. Perkins was no respecter of persons. He would have
addressed his wife as 'Blow-fly,' or 'Sossidge,' or 'Piggins,' or by
any of the ridiculous names of the sort that he affected, in the
presence of the queen or his own handy lad. I have overheard similar
expressions of playful ribaldry upon his wife's lips many a time, but
never when I was obviously and officially in their presence.

'And what about pay, Nickperry? How do you stand now on the wages
question? What did the Drooper start on, Whizz?' This last question
was addressed to Mrs. Perkins, whose real name, as I learned later--never
once heard upon her husband's lips--was Isabel.

'Eight shillings,' replied Mrs. Perkins. 'But, of co