bygone times--"

"Iss, iss--but what's the question?"

"--All the same when that furriner chap looks up in Tresidder's kitchen
an' says 'My name is Zebedee Minards,' you might ha' blown me down wi' a
puff; an' says I to mysel', wakin' up last night an' thinkin'--'I'll ax
a question of Old Zeb when I sees en, blest if I don't.'"

"Then why in thunder don't 'ee make haste an' do it?"

Uncle Issy, after revolving the question for another fifteen seconds,
produced it in this attractive form--

"Old Zeb, bein' called Zeb, why did 'ee call Young Zeb, Zeb?"

Old Zeb ceased to knock the clods about, descended the path, and leaning
on his visgy began to contemplate the opposite slope of the coombe, as
if the answer were written, in letters hard to decipher, along the
hill-side.

"Well, now," he began, after opening his mouth twice and shutting it
without sound, "folks may say what they like o' your wits, Uncle, an'
talk o' your looks bein' against 'ee, as they do; but you've a-put a
twister, this time, an' no mistake."

"I reckoned it a banger," said the old man, complacently.

"Iss. But I had my reasons all the same."

"To be sure you had. But rabbet me it I can guess what they were."

"I'll tell 'ee. You see when Zeb was born, an' the time runnin' on for
his christ'nin', Rachel an' me puzzled for days what to call en.
At last I said, 'Look 'ere, I tell 'ee what: you shut your eyes an' open
the Bible, anyhow, an' I'll shut mine an' take a dive wi' my finger, an'
we'll call en by the nearest name I hits on.' So we did. When we tuk
en to church, tho', there was a pretty shape. 'Name this cheeld,' says
Pa'son Babbage. 'Selah,' says I, that bein' the word we'd settled.
'Selah?' says he: 'pack o' stuff! that ain't no manner o' name. You
might so well call en Amen.' So bein' hurried in mind, what wi' the
cheeld kickin', an' the water tricklin' off the pa'son's forefinger, an'
the sacred natur' of the deed, I cudn' think 'pon no name but my own;
an' Zeb he was christened."

"Deary me," commented Uncle Issy, "that's a very life-like history.
The wonder is, the self-same fix don't happen at more christ'nin's, 'tis
so very life-like."

A silence followed, full of thought. It was cut short by the rattle of
wheels coming down the road, and Young Zeb's grey mare hove in sight,
with Young Zeb's green cart, and Young Zeb himself standing up in it,
wide-legged. He wore a colour as fresh as on Christmas morning, and
s