"They put him away," said Mattacott. "He was afore the times. He's up along with the Exeter pauper lunatics to this hour, I believe."
"Samuel Edge was cleverer than that," declared Bartley. "And I'll tell you why: he weren't content with anything as it stood, but must be altering and changing and pulling down and building up."
"A foreigner from Bristol way," said Mr. Moses.
"Yes, and the great cleverness of the man undid him. There was an egg-bottomed well to his house, you remember, 'Dumpling'?"
"I do remember," admitted Mr. Shillabeer. "One of they egg-bottomed wells the man had."
"And though it ran out more than enough water for all his needs, nothing would do but he must cut his egg-bottomed well into a bell-bottomed well. A pushing, clever chap."
Reuben took up the narrative.
"He went down hisself to do the work; and the sides fell in when he'd under-cut a bit; and they didn't get the carpse out for three days," he said, gloomily.
"Yet an amazing clever man was Edge," concluded Bartley.
"Better he'd left well alone, however," ventured Mr. Screech. His jest was greeted with a stare and an uncertain sort of laugh. The folk treat a pun like a conjuring trick: they are dimly conscious that something unusual has happened in conversation, but they cannot say what, and they have no idea how it was done.