his grandfer's own grandson!--his grandfer were just such a
nice unparticular man!" said the maltster.

"Drink, Henry Fray--drink," magnanimously said Jan Coggan, a person
who held Saint-Simonian notions of share and share alike where liquor
was concerned, as the vessel showed signs of approaching him in its
gradual revolution among them.

Having at this moment reached the end of a wistful gaze into mid-air,
Henry did not refuse. He was a man of more than middle age, with
eyebrows high up in his forehead, who laid it down that the law of
the world was bad, with a long-suffering look through his listeners
at the world alluded to, as it presented itself to his imagination.
He always signed his name "Henery"--strenuously insisting upon that
spelling, and if any passing schoolmaster ventured to remark that the
second "e" was superfluous and old-fashioned, he received the reply
that "H-e-n-e-r-y" was the name he was christened and the name he
would stick to--in the tone of one to whom orthographical differences
were matters which had a great deal to do with personal character.

Mr. Jan Coggan, who had passed the cup to Henery, was a crimson man
with a spacious countenance and private glimmer in his eye, whose
name had appeared on the marriage register of Weatherbury and
neighbouring parishes as best man and chief witness in countless
unions of the previous twenty years; he also very frequently filled
the post of head godfather in baptisms of the subtly-jovial kind.

"Come, Mark Clark--come. Ther's plenty more in the barrel," said
Jan.

"Ay--that I will, 'tis my only doctor," replied Mr. Clark, who,
twenty years younger than Jan Coggan, revolved in the same orbit. He
secreted mirth on all occasions for special discharge at popular
parties.

"Why, Joseph Poorgrass, ye han't had a drop!" said Mr. Coggan to a
self-conscious man in the background, thrusting the cup towards him.

"Such a modest man as he is!" said Jacob Smallbury. "Why, ye've
hardly had strength of eye enough to look in our young mis'ess's
face, so I hear, Joseph?"

All looked at Joseph Poorgrass with pitying reproach.

"No--I've hardly looked at her at all," simpered Joseph, reducing his
body smaller whilst talking, apparently from a meek sense of undue
prominence. "And when I seed her, 'twas nothing but blushes with
me!"

"Poor feller," said Mr. Clark.

"'Tis a curious nature for a man," said Jan Coggan.

"Yes," continued Joseph Poorgrass--h