something
there."

"If he had twenty thousand pounds, he'd lose it all."

"That's very likely; but the question is, how would you fare in the
mean time? If he hadn't this claim upon you, of course you'd let him
build what he liked, and only laugh at him." Then Mr. Tappitt uttered
another exclamation, and pulling his hat tighter on to his head,
walked out of the lawyer's office and returned to the brewery.

They dined at three o'clock at the brewery, and during dinner on
this day the father of the family made himself very disagreeable. He
scolded the maid-servant till the poor girl didn't know the spoons
from the forks. He abused the cook's performances till that valuable
old retainer declared that if "master got so rampageous he might
suit hisself, the sooner the better; she didn't care how soon; she'd
cooked victuals for his betters and would again." He snarled at
his daughters till they perked up their faces and came silently to
a mutual agreement that they would not condescend to notice him
further while he held on in his present mood. And he replied to his
wife's questions,--questions intended to be soothing and kindly
conjugal,--in such a tone that she determined to have it out with him
before she allowed him to go to bed. "She knew her duty," she said to
herself, "and she could stand a good deal. But there were some things
she couldn't stand and some things that weren't her duty." After
dinner Tappitt took himself out at once to his office in the brewery,
and then, for the first time, saw the "Baslehurst Gazette and
Totnes Chronicle" for that week. The "Baslehurst Gazette and Totnes
Chronicle" was an enterprising weekly newspaper, which had been
originally intended to convey on Sunday mornings to the inhabitants
of South Devonshire the news of the past week, and the paper still
bore the dates of successive Sundays. But it had gradually pushed
itself out into the light of its own world before its own date,
gaining first a night and then a day, till now, at the period of
which I am speaking, it was published on the Friday morning.

"You ought just to look at this," a burly old foreman had said,
handing him the paper in question, with his broad thumb placed upon
a certain column. This foreman had known Bungall, and though he
respected Tappitt, he did not fear him. "You should just look at
this. Of course it don't amount to nothing; but it's as well to
see what folks say." And he handed the paper to his master,