asked 'im 'ow he got on that they 'ad to give it up.
But they began to 'ave a sort of idea at last that Ted Reddish 'ad been
'aving a game with 'em, and that Mrs. Reddish was worse than wot 'e
was."

A GARDEN PLOT

The able-bodied men of the village were at work, the children were at
school singing the multiplication-table lullaby, while the wives and
mothers at home nursed the baby with one hand and did the housework with
the other. At the end of the village an old man past work sat at a rough
deal table under the creaking signboard of the Cauliflower, gratefully
drinking from a mug of ale supplied by a chance traveller who sat
opposite him.

The shade of the elms was pleasant and the ale good. The traveller
filled his pipe and, glancing at the dusty hedges and the white road
baking in the sun, called for the mugs to be refilled, and pushed his
pouch towards his companion. After which he paid a compliment to the
appearance of the village.

"It ain't what it was when I was a boy," quavered the old man, filling
his pipe with trembling fingers. "I mind when the grindstone was stuck
just outside the winder o' the forge instead o' being one side as it now
is; and as for the shop winder--it's twice the size it was when I was a
young 'un."

He lit his pipe with the scientific accuracy of a smoker of sixty
years' standing, and shook his head solemnly as he regarded his altered
birthplace. Then his colour heightened and his dim eye flashed.

"It's the people about 'ere 'as changed more than the place 'as," he
said, with sudden fierceness; "there's a set o' men about here nowadays
as are no good to anybody; reg'lar raskels. And if you've the mind
to listen I can tell you of one or two as couldn't be beat in London
itself.

"There's Tom Adams for one. He went and started wot 'e called a
Benevolent Club. Threepence a week each we paid agin sickness or
accident, and Tom was secretary. Three weeks arter the club was started
he caught a chill and was laid up for a month. He got back to work a
week, and then 'e sprained something in 'is leg; and arter that was
well 'is inside went wrong. We didn't think much of it at first, not
understanding figures; but at the end o' six months the club hadn't got
a farthing, and they was in Tom's debt one pound seventeen-and-six.

"He isn't the only one o' that sort in the place, either. There was
Herbert Richardson. He went to town, and came back with the idea of a
Goose Club for