"Now, just you see how I be helped up with this here 'ooman," he concluded as Duck arrived. Mr. Iden, not a little glad of an opportunity to escape a repetition of the narrative, to which he had patiently listened, took Jack by the arm, and led him indoors. As they went the man on the stool extended his arm towards them hopelessly:--"Just you see how I be helped up with this here 'ooman!" A good many have been "helped up" with a woman before now. Mrs. Iden met Jack with a gracious smile--she always did--yet there could not have been imagined a man less likely to have pleased her. A quick, nervous temperament, an eye sharp to detect failings or foolishness, an admirer of briskness and vivacity, why did she welcome John Duck, that incarnation of stolidity and slowness, that enormous mountain of a man? Because extremes meet? No, since she was always complaining of Iden's dull, motionless life; so it was not the contrast to her own disposition that charmed her. John Duck was Another Man--not Mr. Iden. The best of matrons like to see Another Man enter their houses; there's no viciousness in it, it is simply nature, which requires variety. The best of husbands likes to have another woman--or two, or three--on a visit; there's nothing wrong, it is innocent enough, and but gives a spice to the monotony of existence. Besides, John Duck, that mountain of slowness and stolidity, was not perhaps a fool, notwithstanding his outward clumsiness. A little attention is appreciated even by a matron of middle age. "Will you get us some ale?" said Iden; and Mrs. Iden brought a full jug with her own hands--a rare thing, for she hated the Goliath barrel as Iden enjoyed it. "Going to the fair, Mr. Duck?" "Yes, m'm," said John, deep in his chest and gruff, about as a horse might be expected to speak if he had a voice. "You going, m'm? I just come up to ask if you'd ride in my dog-trap?" John had a first-rate turn-out. Mrs. Iden, beaming with smiles, replied that she was not going to the fair. "Should be glad to take you, you know," said John, dipping into the ale. "Shall you be going presently?"--to Mr. Iden. "Perhaps you'd have a seat?" "Hum!" said Iden, fiddling with his chin, a trick he had when undecided. "I don't zactly know; fine day, you see; want to see that hedge grubbed; want to fill up the gaps; want to go over to the wood meads; thought about----" "There, take and go!" said Mrs. Iden. "Sit there thinking--take and go." "I can't say zactly, John; don't seem to have anything to go vor." "What do other people go for?" said Mrs. Iden, contemptuously. "Why can't you do like other people? Get on your clean shirt, and go. Jack can wait--he can talk to Amaryllis while you dress."