"He's spoilt a bit. He gets round one you know. There's a great power in him to say the word to a woman he always knows will please her. I properly like him some days; then other days he drives me frantic."
The gruff voice of Mrs. Honeysett's father intruded upon them. It came from a little chamber which opened out of the kitchen and had been converted into his bedroom. His lower limbs were paralysed, but he had a vehicle which he moved by handles, and could thus steer himself about the ground floor of his home.
"I hear Arthur Chaffe," rumbled the voice. "I'll see you, Arthur, afore you go, and larn if you've got more sense than when you was here last."
A gurgle of laughter followed this remark and the visitor echoed it.
"Ah! You bad old blid! No more of your sense, I promise you. We know where your sense comes from!"
"Don't you charge too much for my new gate then—sense, or no sense."
"Whoever heard tell of me charging too much for anything, Enoch?"
"Widow Snow did, when you buried her husband."
Again the slow, heavy laughter followed; but Mr. Chaffe did not laugh. He shook his head.
"Past praying for," he said.