an amazing number of back-falls on fair ground, clear
of snags and brickbats; and, of course, the Linnet's seconds made a
special point of this, examining careful and keeping an eye to prevent
the introduction of broke-up rubbish inside the ropes by parties having
an interest, or viciously disposed.

"There you are again, Uncle Mo, a-tellin' and a-tellin' and a-tellin'!"
So Aunt M'riar would say when she heard this narrative going over
well-known ground for the thousandth time. "And them children not
lettin' you turn round in bed, I call it!" This was in reference to Dave
and Dolly's severity about the text. The smallest departure from the
earlier version led to both them children pouncing at once. Dave would
exclaim reproachfully:--"You _did_ say a Sweep with one blind eye, Uncle
Mo!" and Dolly would confirm his words with as much emphasis as her
powers of speech allowed. "Essoodid, a 'Weep with one b'ind eye!"--also
reproachfully. Then Uncle Moses would supply a corrected version of
whatever was defective, in this case an eye not quite blind, but nearly,
owing to a young nipper, no older than Dave, aiming a broken bottle at
him as the orficers was conducting of him to the Station, after a fight
Wandsworth way, the other party being took off to the Horspital for
dead.

The Jews, I am told, won't stand any nonsense when they have their
sacred writings copied, always destroying every inaccurate MS. the
moment an error is spotted in it. Dave and Dolly were not the Jews, but
they were as intolerant of variation in the text of this almost sacred
legend of the Sweep. "S'ow me how you punched him, wiv Dave's head,"
Dolly would say; and she would be most exacting over the dramatic
rendering of this ancient fight. "Percisely this way like I'm showing
you--only harder," was Uncle Moses' voucher for his own accuracy. "Muss
harder?" inquired Dolly. "Well--a tidy bit harder!" said the veteran
with truth. The head of the Sweep's understudy, Dave, was not equal to a
full-dress rehearsal. So Dolly had to be content with the promise of a
closer reading of the part when her brother was growed up.

But it was rather like Aunt M'riar said, for Uncle Moses. Those two
young Turks didn't allow their uncle no latitude, in the manner of
speaking. He couldn't turn round in bed.

These rainy days, when the children could not possibly be allowed out,
taxed their guardians' patience just to the point of making
them--suppose we say--not ungrate