“To my knowing,” said Mrs. Bacon to Mrs. Jones, “he had his lamp burning till half-past ten at night. Now he don’t burn a lamp all that time for the sake of wasting oil.”
“I’ll tell you something more,” said Mrs. Jones; “it isn’t oil only as he consumes, it is ink as well. He has bought ten penny ink-pots, and one wi’ red ink, at Miss Buck’s shop in a twelvemonth. What do he want wi’ so much ink? He can’t drink it.”
“He is writing a book. Take my word for it.”
“A book! What about? He don’t know nothing.”
“Poetry, perhaps. A man may write that with his head empty. Every fool knows that.”
“He don’t look like a poet—not when he’s unshaved.”
“I’ll tell you what—it may be his cures, and the way to strike wounds and white swellings.”
“Ah! there, that is more likely.”
And this purchase of penny pots of ink continued for thirty-five years. At the rate of ten a year, that would be three hundred and fifty pots of black ink. It was amazing. For what could he want so much ink? It was also ascertained that he sent by the carrier periodically to the market town for copy-books, and had them out in packets of a dozen at a time. What could he be putting into all those copy-books?