my mates, lad, I'll do owt for you.
There!"

That _there_ was as emphatic as a blow from his hammer on the anvil.

"I thought you would, Pannell," I said. "Well, look here. My uncles
are as good and kind-hearted men as ever lived."

"And as nyste to work for as ever was," said Pannell, giving an emphatic
bang on his work as he hammered away.

"Well, I'm very fond of them," I said.

"Nat'rally, lad, nat'rally."

"And as I know they're trying to do their best for everybody who works
for them, as well as for themselves, so as to find bread for all--"

I stopped just then, for the big smith's face was very red, and he was
making a tremendous clangour with his hammer.

"Well," I said, "it worries me very much to see that every now and then
a big rat gets to their sack of wheat and gnaws a hole in it and lets
the grain run out."

"Where do they keep their wheat?" said Pannell, leaving off for awhile.

"Here," I said.

"Ah! There's part rats about these here rezzywors," he said,
thoughtfully. "Why don't you set that trap?"

"Because it isn't half big enough--not a quarter big enough," I said;
"but I wish to catch that rat, and I want you to make me a big trap-like
this, only four times as large, and with a very strong spring."

"Eh?"

"I want to set that trap, and I want to catch that, great cowardly rat,
and I want you to make me a trap that will hold him."

"Eh?"

"Don't you understand?" I said, looking at him meaningly as he stood
wiping the perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand.

"Yow want to set a trap to catch the big rat as comes and makes a hole
in the mester's sack."

"Yes," I said. "I want to catch him."

"What! Here about the works?"

"Yes," I said. "Now do you see?"

_Poof_!

Pannell gave vent to a most curious sound that was like nothing so much
as one that might have been emitted if his forge bellows had suddenly
burst. To give vent to that sound he opened his mouth wide, clapped his
hands on his leather apron, and bent nearly double.

"Why, Pannell!" I exclaimed.

_Poof_! He stamped first one leg on the black iron dust and ashes, and
then the other, going round his anvil and grumbling and rumbling
internally in the most extraordinary manner.

Then he looked me in the face and exploded once more, till his mirth and
the absurdity of his antics grew infectious, and I laughed too.

"And you're going to set a big trap to catch that there"--_poof_--"that
th