"Explain yourself, if you please, Mr. Jarvis. I am not sure that I understand you," said Marion.
"I mean, that, in an easy job, which any fair workman could do well enough, it would not be easy to tell his work. But, where the job was difficult, it would be so much better done, that it would not be difficult to see the better hand in it."
"I understand you, then, to indicate, that the chief distinction would lie in the quality of the work; that whatever he did, he would do in such a thorough manner, that over the whole of what he turned out, as you would say, the perfection of the work would be a striking characteristic. Is that it?"
"That is what I do mean, grannie."
"And that is just the conclusion I had come to myself."
"I should like to say just one word to it, grannie, so be you won't cut up crusty," said the blind man.
"If you are fair, I sha'n't be crusty, Mr. Evans. At least, I hope not," said Marion.
"Well, it's this: Mr. Jarvis he say as how the jiner-work done by Jesus Christ would be better done than e'er another man's,—tip-top fashion,—and there would lie the differ. Now, it do seem to me as I've got no call to come to that 'ere conclusion. You been tellin' on us, grannie, I donno how long now, as how Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and that he come to do the works of God,—down here like, afore our faces, that we might see God at work, by way of. Now, I ha' nothin' to say agin that: it may be, or it mayn't be—I can't tell. But if that be the way on it, then I don't see how Mr. Jarvis can be right; the two don't curryspond,—not by no means. For the works o' God—there ain't one on'em as I can see downright well managed—tip-top jiner's work, as I may say; leastways,—Now stop a bit, grannie; don't trip a man up, and then say as he fell over his own dog,—leastways, I don't say about the moon an' the stars an' that; I dessay the sun he do get up the werry moment he's called of a mornin', an' the moon when she ought to for her night-work,—I ain't no 'stronomer strawnry, and I ain't heerd no complaints about them; but I do say as how, down here, we ha' got most uncommon bad weather more'n at times; and the walnuts they turns out, every now an' then, full o' mere dirt; an' the oranges awful. There 'ain't been a good crop o' hay, they tells me, for many's the year. An' i' furren parts, what wi' earthquakes an' wolcanies an' lions an' tigers, an' savages as eats their wisiters, an' chimley-pots blowin' about, an' ships goin' down, an' fathers o' families choked an' drownded an' burnt i' coal-pits by the hundred,—it do seem to me that if his jinerin' hadn't been tip-top, it would ha' been but like the rest on it. There, grannie! Mind, I mean no offence; an' I don't doubt you ha' got somethink i' your weskit pocket as 'll turn it all topsy-turvy in a moment. Anyhow, I won't purtend to nothink, and that's how it look to me."
"I admit," said Marion, "that the objection is a reasonable one. But why do you put it, Mr. Evans, in such a triumphant way, as if you were rejoiced to think it admitted of no answer, and believed the world would be ever so much better off if the storms and the tigers had it all their own way, and there were no God to look after things."
"Now, you ain't fair to me, grannie. Not avin' of my heyesight like the rest on ye, I may be a bit fond of a harguyment; but I tries to hit fair, and when I hears what ain't logic, I can no more help comin' down upon it than I can help breathin' the air o' heaven. And why shouldn't I? There ain't no law agin a harguyment. An' more an' over, it do seem to me as how you and Mr. Jarvis is wrong i' it is harguyment."