"He never come to look at mine. There's a proper lot o' cloam in Highfield, and he didn't crave to see it. Us ha' heard he come to build the railway, and you stopped him from adoing it." "Well, perhaps I did," replied George, trying to score a point by lying. "I know you are all against the scheme." "Us wur agin it very strong, because it had never been properly explained," said the Wallower in Wealth. "Us hadn't been told they meant to put a terminus in Highfield. I ha' been to terminuses. 'Tis places where trains start from." "And where 'em pulls up," added the Dumpy Philosopher. "Where they starts from and where they pulls up again. It don't make no difference. I ha' started from terminuses, and I ha' stopped in 'em, so I knows what I'm telling about. A terminus brings a lot of money into a place. When they makes a terminus a town is soon built all round it. There's one or two in Highfield who ha' seen Waterloo, and that's a terminus. And they ses 'tis wonderful what a big town ha' been built all round it. A hundred years ago it wur just a ploughed field, where that tremenjus big battle was fought what made us all free volk vor ever; and now 'tis all terminus as far as you can see. That American gentleman come here wi' his syndicate...." "'Tis something vor levelling the ground, I fancy," said the Dumpy Philosopher, when his colleague paused. "He would ha' levelled the ground as flat as your hand, and made the terminus; and we would ha' sold our land vor what us like to ask. Now you've ruined us, sir. You ha' stopped the terminus--and you stole my musical box," said the Wallower in Wealth, combining his grievances in one brief indictment. "You're talking like a child. How can I steal my own property?" cried George angrily. "Mrs. Drake left all your furniture to Kezia," shouted the Wallower in Wealth. "And the rest of it to Bessie," added the Dumpy Philosopher. "They ha' got paper to prove it, Robert ses." "Why did you offer me money for the musical box, then?" asked George. "To try your honesty," replied the Wallower in Wealth. "And you warn't honest. You wouldn't take my money because it warn't big enough. Then you go and steal the musical box, wi' a lot of other things, from Kezia." "And from Bessie Mudge," added the Dumpy Philosopher. "And if you don't get sent to prison--" "It won't be for the same reason that you aren't put away in a lunatic asylum," George finished; wondering, as he went on to engage a lodging, how it was his uncle had succeeded in ruling this community of wranglers.