. But I can't promise. This is a' old cask, and the
wood's rotted away about the tap-hole. The husbird of a feller Sam
Lawson--that ever I should call'n such, now he's dead and gone, poor
heart!--took me in completely upon the feat of buying this cask. 'Reub,'
says he--'a always used to call me plain Reub, poor old heart!--'Reub,'
he said, says he, 'that there cask, Reub, is as good as new; yes, good as
new. 'Tis a wine-hogshead; the best port-wine in the commonwealth have
been in that there cask; and you shall have en for ten shillens,
Reub,'--'a said, says he--'he's worth twenty, ay, five-and-twenty, if
he's worth one; and an iron hoop or two put round en among the wood ones
will make en worth thirty shillens of any man's money, if--'"

"I think I should have used the eyes that Providence gave me to use afore
I paid any ten shillens for a jimcrack wine-barrel; a saint is sinner
enough not to be cheated. But 'tis like all your family was, so easy to
be deceived."

"That's as true as gospel of this member," said Reuben.

Mrs. Dewy began a smile at the answer, then altering her lips and
refolding them so that it was not a smile, commenced smoothing little
Bessy's hair; the tranter having meanwhile suddenly become oblivious to
conversation, occupying himself in a deliberate cutting and arrangement
of some more brown paper for the broaching operation.

"Ah, who can believe sellers!" said old Michael Mail in a
carefully-cautious voice, by way of tiding-over this critical point of
affairs.

"No one at all," said Joseph Bowman, in the tone of a man fully agreeing
with everybody.

"Ay," said Mail, in the tone of a man who did not agree with everybody as
a rule, though he did now; "I knowed a' auctioneering feller once--a very
friendly feller 'a was too. And so one hot day as I was walking down the
front street o' Casterbridge, jist below the King's Arms, I passed a'
open winder and see him inside, stuck upon his perch, a-selling off. I
jist nodded to en in a friendly way as I passed, and went my way, and
thought no more about it. Well, next day, as I was oilen my boots by
fuel-house door, if a letter didn't come wi' a bill charging me with a
feather-bed, bolster, and pillers, that I had bid for at Mr. Taylor's
sale. The slim-faced martel had knocked 'em down to me because I nodded
to en in my friendly way; and I had to pay for 'em too. Now, I hold that
that was coming it very close, Reuben?"

"'Twas close, t