It's the people in front that I jar.


"Shine yer boots, sir?"

"No," snapped the man.

"Shine 'em so's yer can see yer face in 'em?" urged the bootblack.

"No, I tell you!"

"Coward," hissed the bootblack.


A farmer returning home late at night, found a man standing beside the house with a lighted lantern in his hand. "What are you doing here?" he asked, savagely, suspecting he had caught a criminal. For answer came a chuckle, and—"It's only mee, zur."

The farmer recognized John, his shepherd.