The Churchwarden nodded.
“Nice boys!” said Smithson. “Dessay the father was like ’em, for the girls really are nice, like their mother.”
“Then he was twice as hard as he need be on Jock Morrison,” continued Fullerton, who would finish. “Fancy sending a man to gaol for three months just when his brother’s got a death in the house.”
“Fair play,” cried Portlock. “The bairn died afterwards.”
“Well, maybe it did,” said Fullerton, “but he needn’t have been so hard on the poor bairn’s uncle. Why not give him another chance? He’s no worse in his way than the parson’s boys are in theirs.”
“Boys will be boys,” said Smithson, who wondered whether that pair of trousers to mend might result in an order for a suit.
Fullerton was impatient, and cut in almost before the tailor had finished.
“Clergymen’s all very well in their way, gentlemen, but the dismissing of old schoolmasters and appointing of new ones don’t seem to me to be in their way, especially where there’s governors to a school.”
“Parson’s a governor too,” said Warton, the saddler.
“Ex officio?” said Tomlinson, the ironmonger, who kept the bank.