He stuffed the last hunk of bread into his fierce old mouth, and spluttered out:
“Will you give twelve-and-six?”
“Well—yes. Is that settled?”
“You must settle with missus. I’m only a lodger.”
His eyes glittered at the half-sovereign she took from her purse and laid in Mrs. Hone’s hand.
“Yes, he’s only a lodger, as I often tells him when he’s tiresome. It’s my house. I was borned here—my brother left it me; he says, ‘You was borned here and you shall die here.’ My father built it and my brother added on this front room. His wife wanted to pull the old place down and put up a new; but he says, ‘No; what the father’s hands had put up the son’s should never pull down.’”
She kept laughing feebly and looking at them, from one to the other, with her dim eyes, deep in the web of seventy-eight years.
“It’s my cottage, and that’s why they won’t give me parish relief. It’s very hard. I ses to ’em, ‘I can’t fill my poor empty belly with bricks and mortar. An’ I am so fond of a bit of meat.’”
She was like a small child begging for sweets.
“Haven’t you any daughter to come in and look after you?”