have arranged to keep our Wedding-day (as far as that goes) at
home," said John. "We have made the promise to ourselves these six
months. We think, you see, that home--"

"Bah! what's home?" cried Tackleton. "Four walls and a ceiling! (Why
don't you kill that Cricket? _I_ would! I always do. I hate their
noise.) There are four walls and a ceiling at my house. Come to me!"

"You kill your Crickets, eh?" said John.

"Scrunch 'em, sir," returned the other, setting his heel heavily on the
floor. "You'll say you'll come? It's as much your interest as mine, you
know, that the women should persuade each other that they're quiet and
contented, and couldn't be better off. I know their way. Whatever one
woman says, another woman is determined to clinch always. There's that
spirit of emulation among 'em, sir, that if your wife says to my wife,
'I'm the happiest woman in the world, and mine's the best husband in the
world, and I dote on him,' my wife will say the same to yours, or more,
and half believe it."

"Do you mean to say she don't, then?" asked the Carrier.

"Don't!" cried Tackleton with a short, sharp laugh. "Don't what?"

The Carrier had some faint idea of adding, "dote upon you." But,
happening to meet the half-closed eye, as it twinkled upon him over the
turned-up collar of the cape, which was within an ace of poking it out,
he felt it such an unlikely part and parcel of anything to be doted on,
that he substituted, "that she don't believe it?"

"Ah, you dog! You're joking," said Tackleton.

But the Carrier, though slow to understand the full drift of his
meaning, eyed him in such a serious manner, that he was obliged to be a
little more explanatory.

"I have the humour," said Tackleton: holding up the fingers of his left
hand, and tapping the forefinger, to imply, "There I am, Tackleton to
wit": "I have the humour, sir, to marry a young wife, and a pretty
wife": here he rapped his little finger, to express the Bride; not
sparingly, but sharply; with a sense of power. "I'm able to gratify that
humour, and I do. It's my whim. But--now look there!"

He pointed to where Dot was sitting, thoughtfully before the fire:
leaning her dimpled chin upon her hand, and watching the bright blaze.
The Carrier looked at her, and then at him, and then at her, and then at
him again.

"She honours and obeys, no doubt, you know," said Tackleton; "and that,
as I am not a man of sentiment, is quite enough for _me_. But do you
t