The Clerk looked at Mr. Alison, and shrugged his shoulders “The biter’s bit, eh? Now, Mr. Alison, what have you to say?”
“Nothing your Worships. The case is in your hands.”
“You may go, Young man,” said the chairman to Ephraim. Then, such is the force of habit: “Let this be a lesson to you. You’ve escaped this time, thanks to the ingenuity of your friends; but the jug that goes oft to the well gets broken at last. The case is dismissed.”
And Ephraim stepped out of the dock a free man, amid cheers which the constable tried in vain to suppress.
CHAPTER VI.
I VISIT THE SICK
IT was New Year’s Eve, and Jim and I, much pressed thereto by his good mother, had resolved to attend the Watch Night Service in the Warping Room at Wrigley Mill, to watch the Old Year out and the New Year in. A marked change had come over my friend Jim in these latter days. He had foresworn all taverning, contenting himself with the modest home-brewed of the domestic table, and declaring that he hoped by this route to bring himself in time to treikle-drink, and maybe, though of this he was somewhat sceptical, to plain cold water, a beverage in whose favour all that could be alleged, Jim considered, was that it “cost nowt.” He confessed to me, indeed, that he looked forward with the gloomiest apprehensions to a long existence unenlivened by an occasional spree. But he had made up his mind to “save his brass,” and he knew from grim experience that a working man cannot spend his nights in an alehouse and save money out of his slender earnings.
“Yo’ see,” he would observe pathetically, “it isn’t what yo’ sup yersen, it’s treatin’ other folk. Yo’ go into th’ ‘Hangin’ Gate,’ we’ll say, an’ yo’ ca’ for a pint o’ drink, an’ yo’ sit yo’ dahn an’ fill yo’r pipe, an’ yo’ begin to feel at peace wi’ all mankind. Then a chap comes in an’ says, ‘Hullo, Jim, is that ta? How are ta, lad? Aw hannot seen thee this mony a day. An’ how’s thi owd mother? Eh! aw remember her afore yo’ were born, afore ’oo wedded thi feyther, come to that, an’ a likelier wench nivver stepped this side Stanedge!’ Then he looks at yo’r pot an’ says he’d ha’ axed yo’ to have a pint wi’ him, but he just leets to be shortish hissen. Nah what can yo’ do, aw ax yo’ as man to man but ax him to ha’ a pint wi’ yo’, an’ ha’ one yersen for company’s sake? Then another chap comes in an’ sets him dahn bi th’ side on yo’, an’ tells yo’ both to sup an’ ha’ a drink wi’ him, an’ yo’ don’t like to throw his kindness i’ his face, let alone doin’ an ill turn to th’ landlord. Then in course yo’ll ha’ to put yo’r hands dahn for another go for th’ three on yo’, an’ when yo’n had that yo’ve just abaht come to th’ conclusion yo might as weel mak’ a neet on it, an’ start afresh wi’ yo’r good resolutions another time. So aw see there’s nowt for it but keepin’ aht o’ th’ publics altogether, if ivver aw mean to ha’ a nest-egg laid by.”
“And what has come over you lately, Jim, to make you so keen on saving money”
Jim eyed me sideways.