much
as possible to the neutral tone of disinterested criticism. 'Now, Smith,
I'll tell you something; but she mustn't know it for the world--not for
the world, mind, for she insists upon keeping it a dead secret. Why, SHE
WRITES MY SERMONS FOR ME OFTEN, and a very good job she makes of them!'

'She can do anything.'

'She can do that. The little rascal has the very trick of the trade.
But, mind you, Smith, not a word about it to her, not a single word!'

'Not a word,' said Smith.

'Look there,' said Mr. Swancourt. 'What do you think of my roofing?' He
pointed with his walking-stick at the chancel roof,

'Did you do that, sir?'

'Yes, I worked in shirt-sleeves all the time that was going on. I pulled
down the old rafters, fixed the new ones, put on the battens, slated
the roof, all with my own hands, Worm being my assistant. We worked like
slaves, didn't we, Worm?'

'Ay, sure, we did; harder than some here and there--hee, hee!' said
William Worm, cropping up from somewhere. 'Like slaves, 'a b'lieve--hee,
hee! And weren't ye foaming mad, sir, when the nails wouldn't go
straight? Mighty I! There, 'tisn't so bad to cuss and keep it in as to
cuss and let it out, is it, sir?'

'Well--why?'

'Because you, sir, when ye were a-putting on the roof, only used to cuss
in your mind, which is, I suppose, no harm at all.'

'I don't think you know what goes on in my mind, Worm.'

'Oh, doan't I, sir--hee, hee! Maybe I'm but a poor wambling thing, sir,
and can't read much; but I can spell as well as some here and there.
Doan't ye mind, sir, that blustrous night when ye asked me to hold the
candle to ye in yer workshop, when you were making a new chair for the
chancel?'

'Yes; what of that?'

'I stood with the candle, and you said you liked company, if 'twas only
a dog or cat--maning me; and the chair wouldn't do nohow.'

'Ah, I remember.'

'No; the chair wouldn't do nohow. 'A was very well to look at; but,
Lord!----'

'Worm, how often have I corrected you for irreverent speaking?'

'--'A was very well to look at, but you couldn't sit in the chair nohow.
'Twas all a-twist wi' the chair, like the letter Z, directly you sat
down upon the chair. "Get up, Worm," says you, when you seed the chair
go all a-sway wi' me. Up you took the chair, and flung en like fire
and brimstone to t'other end of your shop--all in a passion. "Damn the
chair!" says I. "Just what I was thinking," says you, sir. "I could see
it in your face