The sportive twins, who have been looking straight before them all this time, except when they have been engrossed by the black leathern cases, retire together, generally disdainful of the visitor, but leaving him to the old man, as two young cubs might leave a traveler to the parental bear.
"And there you sit, I suppose, all the day long, eh?" says Mr. George, with folded arms.
"Just so, just so," the old man nods.
"And don't you occupy yourself at all?"
"I watch the fire—and the boiling and the roasting—"
"When there is any," says Mr. George, with great expression.
"Just so. When there is any."
"Don't you read, or get read to?"
The old man shakes his head with sharp, sly triumph. "No, no. We have never been readers in our family. It don't pay. Stuff. Idleness. Folly. No, no!"
"There's not much to choose between your two states," says the visitor, in a key too low for the old man's dull hearing, as he looks from him to the old woman and back again. "I say!" in a louder voice.