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"But you're always a-axin', you are," said Joel gloo into his tankard,

"w'ich I notice as you ain't never over-fond o' answerin'"

"Oh!--I ain't, ain't I?"

"No, you ain't," repeated Torew so very red indeed that the others

fell to coughing, all together, and shuffling their feet and

giving divers other evidences of their e the occasion that now presented itself, I knocked loudly

upon the floor withhis eyes slowly and by degrees from the unconcerned To," said I, "supposing you are so very obliging as to

serve me with a pint of ale?"

"Then supposin' you show rowled,

"come, money fust; I aren't takin' no more risks"

For answer I laid the coins before hi pocketed the

tankard towards me, which I

emptied forthwith and called upon him for another

"Wheer's youra sixpence to hie"

"Why, ye see, sir," he began, soentleman, an' who ain't; who's a thief, an'

who ain't these days"

"How so?"