and giving
out as the Ten Commandments are not enough for him, and all the while
he's worse than half the men at the tread-mill?' Fletcher said so
himself."

"It'll be a bad thing for the town though, if Bulstrode's money goes
out of it," said Mr. Limp, quaveringly.

"Ah, there's better folks spend their money worse," said a firm-voiced
dyer, whose crimson hands looked out of keeping with his good-natured
face.

"But he won't keep his money, by what I can make out," said the
glazier. "Don't they say as there's somebody can strip it off him? By
what I can understan', they could take every penny off him, if they
went to lawing."

"No such thing!" said the barber, who felt himself a little above his
company at Dollop's, but liked it none the worse. "Fletcher says it's
no such thing. He says they might prove over and over again whose
child this young Ladislaw was, and they'd do no more than if they
proved I came out of the Fens--he couldn't touch a penny."

"Look you there now!" said Mrs. Dollop, indignantly. "I thank the Lord
he took my children to Himself, if that's all the law can do for the
motherless. Then by that, it's o' no use who your father and mother
is. But as to listening to what one lawyer says without asking
another--I wonder at a man o' your cleverness, Mr. Dill. It's well
known there's always two sides, if no more; else who'd go to law, I
should like to know? It's a poor tale, with all the law as there is up
and down, if it's no use proving whose child you are. Fletcher may say
that if he likes, but I say, don't Fletcher _me_!"

Mr. Dill affected to laugh in a complimentary way at Mrs. Dollop, as a
woman who was more than a match for the lawyers; being disposed to
submit to much twitting from a landlady who had a long score against
him.

"If they come to lawing, and it's all true as folks say, there's more
to be looked to nor money," said the glazier. "There's this poor
creetur as is dead and gone; by what I can make out, he'd seen the day
when he was a deal finer gentleman nor Bulstrode."

"Finer gentleman! I'll warrant him," said Mrs. Dollop; "and a far
personabler man, by what I can hear. As I said when Mr. Baldwin, the
tax-gatherer, comes in, a-standing where you sit, and says, 'Bulstrode
got all his money as he brought into this town by thieving and
swindling,'--I said, 'You don't make me no wiser, Mr. Baldwin: it's set
my blood a-creeping to look at him ever sin' here he came