"There's Government again! I tell ye how 'tis, sir, Government means to get rid of me, though I never done anything worse than stop my ears when parson prays vor Parliament. I hates Government, sir, and I do wish it wur possible to vote against both parties. If I wur to make my own tobacco, or vizzy wine such as rich volk drink at funerals, they'd put me away in prison. Why ain't it illegal vor volks to make their own bread? I'll tell ye why, sir: 'tis because Government means to do away wi' bakers. They ha' been telling a lot lately about encouraging home industries, and that's how they stir up volks to ruin we tradesmen by making all they want at home." "You are not ruined yet. Robert declares you are the richest man in Highfield--not that I believe much he says," George remarked, settling down to business. "Quite right, sir. I ha' learned Robert to bake, but I can't prevent him from talking childish. He'd like to see me out of the business, so that he could slip into the ruins of it. When he sees I'm the richest man in the village he means the poorest. 'Tis just a contrairy way of talking. Captain Drake often looked in to tell wi' me--out of gratitude vor my doughnuts what helped him to sleep, he said--'twur avore he died so sharp like." "I guessed as much," said George. "And he used to tell me, if you wanted to make a man real angry you had only to say the opposite of what you meant in the most polite language you could find. He told Robert the like, I fancy." "My uncle generally found the soft answer a success," said George. "He told me once how another captain once called him 'a bullying old scoundrel with a face like a lobster-salad,' and he replied, 'You're a ewe-lamb.' The other man got madder than ever though, as my uncle said, you can't find anything much softer than a ewe-lamb. But Robert isn't always calling you a rich man. He's in our kitchen every evening, and he talks pretty freely when he has a drop of cocoa in him." "He ain't got nothing against me. Me and the missus ha' been a father to him," said the baker, with suspicious alacrity. "He thinks he has a grievance." "Then I suppose he's still worrying over his honeymoon. A man what's been married years and years ought to be thinking of his future state and his old-age pension. He might as well be asking vor his childhood back again." "He says you cheated him out of his honeymoon," said George, who knew the story: how Dyer's wedding present to his assistant had been leave of absence, without pay, from Saturday to Monday; coupled with a promise of a week's holiday, with half pay, at some future date when business might be slack; which promise belonged to that fragile order of assurances declaimed so loudly at election time. "'Tis a lot too late now," said the baker.