CHAPTER XIII.
"Is he in himsell?" asked Gibson the builder, coming into the Emporium.
Mrs. Wilson was alone in the shop. Since trade grew so brisk she had an assistant to help her, but he was out for his breakfast at present, and as it happened she was all alone.
"No," she said, "he's no in. We're terribly driven this twelvemonth back, since trade grew so thrang, and he's aye hunting business in some corner. He's out the now after a carrying affair. Was it ainything perticular?"
She looked at Gibson with a speculation in her eyes that almost verged on hostility. Wives of the lower classes who are active helpers in a husband's affairs often direct that look upon strangers who approach him in the way of business. For they are enemies whatever way you take them; come to be done by the husband or to do him—in either case, therefore, the object of a sharp curiosity. You may call on an educated man, either to fleece him or be fleeced, and his wife, though she knows all about it, will talk to you charmingly of trifles while you wait for him in her parlour. But a wife of the lower orders, active in her husband's affairs, has not been trained to dissemble so prettily; though her face be a mask, what she is wondering comes out in her eye. There was suspicion in the big round stare that Mrs. Wilson directed at the builder. What was he spiering for "himsell" for? What could he be up to? Some end of his own, no doubt. Anxious curiosity forced her to inquire.
"Would I do instead?" she asked.
"Well, hardly," said Gibson, clawing his chin, and gazing at a corded round of "Barbie's Best" just above his head. "Dod, it's a fine ham that," he said, to turn the subject. "How are ye selling it the now?"
"Tenpence a pound retail, but ninepence only if ye take a whole one. Ye had better let me send you one, Mr. Gibson, now that winter's drawing on. It's a heartsome thing, the smell of frying ham on a frosty morning"—and her laugh went skelloching up the street.
"Well, ye see," said Gibson, with a grin, "I expect Mr. Wilson to present me with one when he hears the news that I have brought him."
"Aha!" said she, "it's something good, then," and she stuck her arms akimbo.—"James!" she shrilled, "James!" and the red-haired boy shot from the back premises.