, and jumped at it. "That is the
truth, ma'am, what you say, and calls to mind the very words my poor
husband used frequent. So frequent, you might say, that as often as not
they was never out of his mouth. 'Mary Ann Tapping, you are too
tender-hearted for to carry on at all; bein', as we are, subjick.' And I
says back to him: 'Tapping'--I says--'no more than my duty as a
Christian woman should. Read your Bible and you will find,' I says. And
Tapping he would say:--'Right you are, Mary Ann, and viewin' all things
as a Gospel dispensation. But what I look at, Mary Ann'--he says--'is
the effect on your system. You are that 'igh-strung and delicate
organized that what is no account to an 'arder fibre tells. So bear in
mind what I say, Mary Ann Tapping'--he says--'and crost across the way
like the Good Samaritan, keepin' in view that nowadays whatever we are
we are no longer Heathens, and cases receive attention from properly
constitooted Authorities, or are took in at the Infirmary.' Referring,
Mrs. Riley, ma'am, to an Italian organ-boy bit by his own monkey, which
though small was vicious, and open to suspicion of poison...." Mrs.
Tapping dwelt upon her past experience and her meritorious attitude in
trying circumstances, for some time. As, in this instance, she had
offered refreshment to the victim, which had been requisitioned by his
monkey, who escaped and gave way to his appetite on the top of a
street-lamp, but was recaptured when the lamplighter came with his
ladder.

"Shure there'll be nothing lift of the barrow soon barring the bare
fragmints of it," said Mrs. Riley, who had been giving more attention to
the boys and the truck than to the Italian and the monkey. And really
the repetition of the pleasing performance with the handle pointed to
gradual disintegration of Mr. Bartlett's property.

However, salvage was at hand. A herald of Mr. Bartlett himself, or of
his representatives, protruded slowly from Sapps archway, announcing
that his scaffold-poles were going back to the sphere from which they
had emanated on hire. It came slowly, and gave a margin for a stampede
of Dave and his accomplices, leaving the truck very much aslant with the
handle in the air; whereas we all know that a respectable hand-barrer,
that has trusted its owner out of sight, awaits his return with the
quiet confidence of horizontality; or at least with the handle on the
ground. Mr. Bartlett's comment was that nowadays it warn't safe to tak