“I think Miss Swancourt very clever,” Stephen observed.
“Yes, she is; certainly, she is,” said papa, turning his voice as much as possible to the neutral tone of disinterested criticism. “Now, Smith, I’ll tell you something; but she mustn’t know it for the world—not for the world, mind, for she insists upon keeping it a dead secret. Why, SHE WRITES MY SERMONS FOR ME OFTEN, and a very good job she makes of them!”
“She can do anything.”
“She can do that. The little rascal has the very trick of the trade. But, mind you, Smith, not a word about it to her, not a single word!”
“Not a word,” said Smith.
“Look there,” said Mr. Swancourt. “What do you think of my roofing?” He pointed with his walking-stick at the chancel roof,
“Did you do that, sir?”
“Yes, I worked in shirt-sleeves all the time that was going on. I pulled down the old rafters, fixed the new ones, put on the battens, slated the roof, all with my own hands, Worm being my assistant. We worked like slaves, didn’t we, Worm?”
“Ay, sure, we did; harder than some here and there—hee, hee!” said William Worm, cropping up from somewhere. “Like slaves, ’a b’lieve—hee, hee! And weren’t ye foaming mad, sir, when the nails wouldn’t go straight? Mighty I! There, ’tisn’t so bad to cuss and keep it in as to cuss and let it out, is it, sir?”
“Well—why?”