ssess it. Some said they knew he had, for he lived so
niggardly; others said the coal trade was not what it was; and there were
not wanting people who hinted that old Betty Bodger's house and
garden--which had been given to her years ago by the old squire, what
for, nobody knew--had been first mortgaged to Josiah and then sold to him
and "taken out in coals." A very cunning man was Snooks; kept his own
counsel--I don't mean a barrister in wig and gown on his premises--but in
the sense of never divulging what was in his sagacious mind. He was
known as a universal buyer of everything that he could turn a penny out
of; and he sold everybody whenever he got the chance. Such was the
character of old Snooks.

How then came our good guileless friend Bumpkin to be associated with
such a man on this beautiful Sunday morning? I can only answer: there
are things in this world which admit of no explanation. This, so far as
I am concerned, was one.

"They be pooty pork," said Mr. Bumpkin.

"Middlin'," rejoined the artful Snooks.

"They be a mighty dale more an middlin', if you come to thic," said the
farmer.

"I've seen a good deal better," remarked Snooks. This was always his
line of bargaining.

"Well, I aint," returned Bumpkin, emphatically. "Look at that un--why,
he be fit for anything--a regler pictur."

"What's he worth?" said Snooks. "Three arf crowns?" That was Snooks'
way of dealing.

"Whisht!" exclaimed Bumpkin; "and four arf-crowns wouldn't buy un." That
was Bumpkin's way.

Snooks expectorated and gave a roar, which he intended for a laugh, but
which made every pig jump off its feet and dive into the straw.

"I tell 'ee what, maister Bumpkin, I doant want un"--that was his way
again; "but I doant mind giving o' thee nine shillings for that un."

"Thee wunt 'ave un--not a farden less nor ten if I knows it; ye doant
'ave we loike that, nuther--ye beant sellin' coals, maister Snooks--no,
nor buyin' pigs if I knows un."

How far this conversation would have proceeded, and whether any serious
altercation would have arisen, I know not; but at this moment a
combination of circumstances occurred to interrupt the would-be
contracting parties. First, Mrs. Bumpkin, who had been preparing the
Sunday dinner, came across the yard with her apron full of cabbage-leaves
and potato-peelings, followed by an immense number of chickens, while the
ducks in the pond clapped their wings, and flew and ran with as much