the very reason why I
always stand by like, not to introduce my word. Not but that I will
confess to the temptation undergone this very time to say that by God's
will the child was took away from us, undeniable. Against that
temptation I kep' my lips shut. Only I will say this much, and no
concealment, that if my husband had been spared, being now a widow
fourteen years, and heard me keep silence many a time, he might have
said it again and again, like he said it a hundred times if he said it
once when alive and able to it:--'Mary Ann Tapping, you do yourself no
justice settin' still and list'nin', with your tongue in your mouth God
gave you, and you there to use it!' And I says to Tapping, fifty times
if I said it once, 'Tapping,' says I, 'you better know things twiced
before you say 'em for every onced you say 'em before you know 'em.'
Then Tapping, he says, was that to point at 'Lethear? And I says yes,
though the girl was then young and so excusable. But she may learn
better, I says, and made allowance though mistaken...." This is just as
good a point for Mrs. Tapping to cease at as any other in the story. In
reality Heaven only knows when she ceased.

A very miscellaneous public gathered round and formed false ideas of
what had happened from misinformants. The most popular erroneous report
ran towards connecting it somehow with the sewer-trench, influencing
people to look down into its depths and watch for the reappearance of
something supposed to be expected back. So much so that more than one
inoffensive person asked the man in charge of the pumping engine--which
went honourably on without a pause--whether "it" was down there. He was
a morose and embittered man--had been crossed in love, perhaps--for he
met all inquiries by another:--"Who are you a-speaking to?" and, on
being told, added:--"Then why couldn't you say so?" Humble apology had
then to be content with, "No, it ain't down there and never has been, if
you ask me,"--in answer to the previous question.

Old Sam endeavoured more than once to point out that the accident need
not necessarily end fatally. He invented tales of goods-trains that had
passed over him early in life, and the surgical skill that had left him
whole and sound. Trains were really unknown in his boyhood, but there
was no one to contradict him. The public, stimulated to hopefulness,
produced analogous experiences. It had had a hay-cart over it, with a
harvest-home on the top, such as we