"Fretting for his fiddlesticks!" shouted Dick, the miller; "Allan's dead this half a year."
"John's reet," said Job, the stone-cutter; "it is fretting."
Dick of the Syke got up off the iron rods.
"Because a young fellow has given you a job of wark to cut his father's headstone and tell a lie or two in letters half an inch deep and two shillings a dozen—does that show 'at he's fretting?"
"He didn't do nowt of the sort," said Job, hotly.
"Dusta mean as it were the other one—Hugh?" inquired the miller.
"Maybe that's reet," said Job.
Dick of the Syke was not to be beaten for lack of the logic of circumlocution.
"Then what for do you say as Paul is weeping his insides out about his father, when he leaves it to other folks to put a bit of stone over him and a few scrats on it?"
"Because I do say so," said Job, conclusively.