"A beautiful figure that velvet has, to be sure. What house are you weaving it for?"
"Mr. Corbyn's, sir. We all weave for Mr. Corbyn."
The examiners looked at one another, and one of them was disposed to think she meant to say Culver, as there was no manufacturer of the name of Corbyn in the neighbourhood.
"Do you mean Mr. Culver or M. Gaubion, good woman?" asked an impartial examiner.
"Same's he they call Mounseer Go-be-hung," Tom called out from behind.
"What, this gentleman?" and they made way for the Frenchman to show himself. At the sight of him, Tom reddened prodigiously, and poked over his work as if his life depended on his weaving half a yard an hour.
"What are you ashamed of, all in a moment?" asked one of the visitors. "I am afraid you had some hand in the riots the other night, like many an idle boy. Come, tell me; do not you like to light a bonfire?"
"Indeed I can't say that my Tom is any thing better than a middling boy," observed Mrs. Ellis. "Would you believe it, gentlemen, he left his work a full quarter of an hour sooner than he had leave to do, the night of the riot; and when he came home, the skin was off the palm of his hand as clean as if it had been peeled, and he has never had the grace to seem sorry for it."
"Indeed, I don't know who should be sorry for such a misfortune, if he is not," observed a visitor, gravely. "Come, Tom, tell me how it happened. You had been pulling down shutters, or pulling up palings, I am afraid."
"I hadn't though," said Tom, attempting to set the treadles going, but being instantly deprived by his mother of his shuttle.