ng, a cove's own father should be always
a throwing it in his face behind his back! It's enough,' cried Rob,
resorting to his coat-cuff in anguish of spirit, 'to make a cove go and
do something, out of spite!'

'My poor boy!' cried Polly, 'father didn't mean anything.'

'If father didn't mean anything,' blubbered the injured Grinder, 'why
did he go and say anything, mother? Nobody thinks half so bad of me as
my own father does. What a unnatural thing! I wish somebody'd take and
chop my head off. Father wouldn't mind doing it, I believe, and I'd much
rather he did that than t'other.'

At these desperate words all the young Toodles shrieked; a pathetic
effect, which the Grinder improved by ironically adjuring them not to
cry for him, for they ought to hate him, they ought, if they was good
boys and girls; and this so touched the youngest Toodle but one, who was
easily moved, that it touched him not only in his spirit but in his wind
too; making him so purple that Mr Toodle in consternation carried him
out to the water-butt, and would have put him under the tap, but for his
being recovered by the sight of that instrument.

Matters having reached this point, Mr Toodle explained, and the virtuous
feelings of his son being thereby calmed, they shook hands, and harmony
reigned again.

'Will you do as I do, Biler, my boy?' inquired his father, returning to
his tea with new strength.

'No, thank'ee, father. Master and I had tea together.'

'And how is master, Rob?' said Polly.

'Well, I don't know, mother; not much to boast on. There ain't no
bis'ness done, you see. He don't know anything about it--the Cap'en
don't. There was a man come into the shop this very day, and says, "I
want a so-and-so," he says--some hard name or another. "A which?" says
the Cap'en. "A so-and-so," says the man. "Brother," says the Cap'en,
"will you take a observation round the shop." "Well," says the man,
"I've done." "Do you see wot you want?" says the Cap'en "No, I don't,"
says the man. "Do you know it wen you do see it?" says the Cap'en. "No,
I don't," says the man. "Why, then I tell you wot, my lad," says the
Cap'en, "you'd better go back and ask wot it's like, outside, for no
more don't I!"'

'That ain't the way to make money, though, is it?' said Polly.

'Money, mother! He'll never make money. He has such ways as I never see.
He ain't a bad master though, I'll say that for him. But that ain't much
to me, for I don't think I shall stop