The old man glanced down at the parson's purchases with a look of undisguised contempt.
"He's been at it again, mistress," he said.
The parson had thrown off his coat, and was pushing away his long boots with the boot-jack.
"And how's Mr. Bonnithorne this rusty weather? Wait, Peter, give me the slippers out of the big parcel. I got Randal Alston to cut down my old boots into clock sides, and make me slippers out of the feet. Only sixpence, and see what a cozy pair. Thank you, Peter. So you're well, Mr. Bonnithorne. Odd, you say? Well, it is, considering the world of folk who are badly these murky days."
Peter lifted the boots and fixed them dexterously under the stump of his abridged member. The tea and coffee he deposited in his trousers' pockets, and the sugar he carried in his hand.
"There'll be never no living with him," he muttered in Greta's ear as he passed out. "Don't know as I mind his going to plow—that's a job for a man with two hands—but the like o' this isn't no master's wark."
"Dear me!" exclaimed the parson, who was examining his easy-chair preparatory to sitting in it, "a new cushion—and a bag on the wall for my specs—and a shelf for my pipes—and a—a—what do you call this?"
"An antimacassar, Mr. Christian," the lawyer said.
"I wondered was he ever going to see any difference," said Greta, with dancing eyes.
"Dear me, and red curtains on the windows, and a clean print counterpane on the settle—"