be glad it's me and not 'er."

As Dick Little showed him out Bindle enquired:

"'Ow am I to get 'ome on that psalm-singin' brother-in-law o'
mine?--that's wot I wants to know. Prayin' for me in chapel." Bindle
wreaked his disgust on the match he was striking.

"I'll think it over," said Little, "and let you know. Good-night, and
thanks for coming. We shall always be glad to see you any Sunday
night."

"Different from 'Earty's Sunday nights," muttered Bindle, as he walked
away. "I wonder which makes the best men. It's a good job I ain't got
anythink to do with 'eaven, or them wheat-ears might sort o' get mixed
wi' the thorns."

CHAPTER XI

MR. HEARTY BECOMES EXTREMELY UNPOPULAR

"'Earty may be all 'ymns an' whiskers," Bindle had said, "an' I 'ate
'is 'oly look an' oily ways; but 'e sticks to his job an' works like a
blackleg. It don't seem to give 'im no pleasure though. 'E don't
often smile, an' when 'e does it's as if 'e thought Gawd was a-goin' to
charge it up against 'im."

Mr. Hearty was an excellent tradesman; he sold nothing that he had not
bought himself, and Covent Garden knew no shrewder judge of what to buy
and what not to buy, or, as Bindle phrased it:

"'E's so used to lookin' for sin in the soul that 'e can see a rotten
apple in the middle of a barrel without knockin' the top off. Yes,
I'll give 'Earty 'is due. There ain't many as can knock spots off 'im
as a greengrocer, though as far as bein' a man, I seen better things
than 'im come out o' cheese."

On the Saturday morning after Bindle's visit to Dick Little, Mr. Hearty
was busily engaged in superintending the arrangement of his Fulham High
Street shop, giving an order here and a touch there, always with
excellent results.

According to his wont he had returned from market before eight o'clock,
breakfasted, hurried round to his other shop in the Wandsworth Bridge
Road, and before ten was back again at Fulham.

He was occupied in putting the finishing touches to a honey-coloured
pyramid of apples, each in its nest of pink paper like a setting hen,
when an ill-favoured man entered leading an enormous dog, in which the
salient points of the mastiff, bull-terrier, and French poodle
struggled for expression. The man looked at a dirty piece of paper he
held in his hand.

"Name of 'Earty?" he interrogated.

"I am Mr. Hearty," was the reply, uttered in a voice that was intended
to suggest dignity with just a dash of Christian