at rogue sold me ten ells of green stamyn, and charged me
thirty shillings the ell, and I vow it was scarce made up ere it began
a-coming to bits. I'll give it him when I can catch him! and if I serve
not our Seth out for dinting in the blackjack last night, I'm a Dutch
woman, and no mistake! Black jacks are half-a-crown apiece, and so I
told him; but I'll give him a bit more afore I've done with him; trust
me. There is no keeping lads in order. The mischievousness of 'em's
past count. My husband, he says, `Lads will be lads,'--he's that easy,
if a mouse ran away with his supper from under his nose, he'd only call
after it, `Much good may it do thee.' Do you ever hear mice in your
house, Mrs Murthwaite! I'm for ever and the day after plagued wi'
them, and I do wish those lads 'ud make theirselves a bit useful and
catch 'em, instead o' dinting in black jacks. But, dear heart, you'll
as soon catch the mice as catch them at aught that's useful. They'll--"

"My mistress," said Mrs Abbott's next neighbour, "may I ask if your
husband be a very silent man?"

"I'm sure o' that," said the man who followed him.

"Eh, bless you, they all talk and chatter at our house while I can't
slip a word in," was the lady's answer.

"That's why she has so many to let go out o' door," remarked the last
speaker.

"I thought so," observed the neighbour, "because I have marked that men
and women do mostly wed with their contraries."

"Why, what mean you?" inquired Mrs Abbott, turning round to look him in
the face.

"That my way lieth down this by-street," said he, working himself out of
the crush into Channon Row, "and so I bid you all good-morrow."

Temperance Murthwaite laughed to herself, as she let herself in at the
door of the White Bear, while Mrs Abbott hurried into the Angel with a
box on the ear to Dorcas and Hester, who leaned upon the gate watching
the crowd.

"Get you in to your business!" said she. "Chatter, chatter, chatter!
One might as well live in a cage o' magpies at once, and ha' done with
it. Be off with the pair of ye!"

Garnet's admissions in answer to the questions put to him were few and
cautious. He allowed that for twenty years he had been the Superior of
the English Jesuits, but denied any knowledge of the negotiations with
Spain, carried on before the death of Queen Elizabeth. As to Fawkes, he
had never seen him but once in his life, at the previous Easter.
Questioned about White Webbs, he flat