"He'll keep out of this yard for a while. He's got his lesson."
So had Parry, and Uncle Joe would not let him forget it. It would be a shame, he said, for any boy to be less wise than a game-cock, and not to be able to use all the natural gifts he had.
THE CARPENTER'S SERMON.
BY DAVID KER.
"Tell ye what, mates, this sort o' thing won't do. Here we've been at it these six weeks, and not a penny of wages yet. It's all very fine to say, 'Stick to your work,' but a man won't git fat on workin' for nothing, that's sartain!"
"Right you are, Bill. S'pose we knocks off work, and tells Sir James we won't do no more without he pays us?"
"Gently, lads: remember what happened to the dog as dropped his meat in grabbin' at the shadder. If we stick to this job, mayhap we'll git our money some time; but if we knock off, we won't find another job growin' on every bush, mark ye."
"Well, that's true; but it's mighty hard luck for us, all the same."
So grumbled, under their breath, a gang of English workmen, who were repairing the interior of one of the great London churches, one fine summer afternoon in the time of George I. And certainly they had good reason to grumble. Sir James Thornhill, the court painter, whom the King had employed to restore and redecorate the building, had his head so full of his own fine plans and sketches, and of the grand show that the church would make when all was done, that he had quite forgotten such a small matter as the paying of his men's wages. So, although the poor fellows had been hard at work for six weeks and more, not a shilling of pay had any of them received yet.