other things, he made a point of taking the middle of the
footpath.

"Will you allow me to pass you, sir?--I am in a hurry," said a voice
behind him one day.

"I won't," said Abinadab; on which a poor washerwoman, with her
basket, scrambled down into the road, and Abinadab chuckled.

Next day he was walking as before.

"Will you allow me to pass you, sir?--I am in a hurry," said a voice
behind him.

"I won't," said Abinadab. On which he was knocked into the ditch; and
the Baron walked on, and left him to get out of the mud on whichever
side he liked.

He quarrelled with his friends till he had none left, and he
quarrelled with the tradesmen of the town till there was only one who
would serve him, and this man offended him at last.

"I'll show you who's master!" said the Miller. "I won't pay a penny of
your bill--not a penny."

"Sir," said the tradesman, "my giving you offence now, is no just
reason why you should refuse to pay for what you have had and been
satisfied with. I must beg you to pay me at once."

"I won't," said the Miller, "and what I say I mean. I won't; I tell
you, I won't."

So the tradesman summoned him before the Justice, and the Justice
condemned him to pay the bill and the costs of the suit.

"I won't," said the Miller.

So they put him in prison, and in prison he would have remained if his
mother had not paid the money to obtain his release. By and by she
died, and left him her blessing and some very good advice, which (as
is sometimes the case with bequests) would have been more useful if it
had come earlier.

The Miller's mother had taken a great deal of trouble off his hands
which now fell into them. She took in all the small bags of grist
which the country-folk brought to be ground, and kept account of them,
and spoke civilly to the customers, big and little. But these small
matters irritated the Miller.

"I may be the slave of all the old women in the country-side," said
he; "but I won't--they shall see that I won't."

So he put up a notice to say that he would only receive grist at a
certain hour on certain days. Now, but a third of the old women could
read the notice, and they did not attend to it. People came as before;
but the Miller locked the door of the mill and sat in the
counting-house and chuckled.

"My good friend," said his neighbours, "you can't do business in this
way. If a man lives by trade, he must serve his customers. And a
Miller must take in grist when