Tyson stood on the hearth with his back to the fire, and eyed the room with a scowl of disgust. The old man, bent double over a stick which he was notching, breathed loudly and laboriously.
“What folly is this about the dog?” Tyson asked contemptuously.
The old man looked up, cunning in his eyes.
“Ask her,” he said.
“Eh?”
The miser bending over his task seemed to be taken with a fit of silent laughter.
“It’s the still sow sups the brose,” he said. “And I’m still! I’m still.”
“What are you doing?” Tyson growled.
“Nothing much! Nothing much! You’ve not,” looking up with greed in his eyes, “an old letter-back to spare?”
Tyson seldom came to the house unfurnished with one. He had long known that Hinkson belonged to the class of misers who, if they can get a thing for nothing, are as well pleased with a scrap of paper, a length of string, or a mouldy crust, as with a crown-piece. The poor land about the house, which with difficulty supported three or four cows, on the produce of which the Hinksons lived, might have been made profitable at the cost of some labour and a little money. But labour and money were withheld. And Tyson often doubted if the miser’s store were as large as rumour had it, or even if there were a store at all.