t was not
very mad--just a little mad--and he used to be raking about the gate.
And there was a clock over the gate; and one day the doctor was going
out, and he took his watch out and looked up, and he said to himself,
"That clock is not right." "If it was right, it wouldn't be in here,"
said the man that was raking.'

* * * * *

'I have a sorrowful story,' says another man. 'I am blind, and I hurt my
hip. And I have a brother fighting for the Queen and for the King, and a
son fighting against the Boers, and neither of them ever sent me
anything.' (But this was received without much sympathy, and with what I
imagine to represent derisive cheers.)

* * * * *

A very wild-looking man told 'on behalf of a poor man inside'--to get
him a bit of tobacco--a long story about a farmer who worked hard
himself, to give his sons time for schooling.

'One of them made money in the West Indies by teaching, and he came
back; and his mother was in the house, and she didn't know him; and he
asked might he stop the night. "Indeed, I can't give you leave to do
that," she said; "for a travelling man stopped for a night not long ago;
and when he went away in the morning, he brought with him the flannel
bawneen and the pants of the man of the house, that were hanging on the
hedge to dry. But stop here for a while," she said, "and rest yourself."

'Presently the father came in, and didn't know him; and when he heard
what the wife had said, he was vexed, and said: "A thousand men might
come the road, and not one of them do what that travelling man did. And
I am sorry, sir," he said, "that my wife gave you such a reason."

'Then the potatoes were ready, and they were put on a skip for the
dinner; and they asked the gentleman to help himself; and they gave him
a knife but it had but half a blade; and they said they were sorry to
have no better a one to give him. But he peeled his potatoes with that.

'And then some one came in and asked would the young people come in and
join a dance, for there was a piper in the next house. And the stranger
asked to go with them. But at every dance-house there is a blackguard,
and there was one there; and he began to mock at the strange gentleman.
And one of his brothers that didn't know he was his brother, said to the
blackguard: "It's a very mean thing of you to mock at a stranger." But
he went on doing it.

'Then the stranger got up and