They all knew something more was coming, and Mrs. Haxtell's knowledge of the rat-catcher's temperament sufficed to keep her breathlessly silent in view of coaxing him to tell his news; though, with the jealousy of the reformed thief who hates to see his brother continuing to thieve, she glanced imploringly at her husband and daughter, who had no intention of speaking, as if to silence them likewise. "Lady Relton's Dick came down my way last night," began Roger, deliberately filling his pipe. So far his news came within the ken of his audience, and they were quick to maintain a share in it. "I saw him myself, I did," began Lily Eliza; but her mother promptly took up the tale. "Lady Relton's Dick? Eh, but he come along nigh after sunset, he did, and he says to my man, he says, 'Seen Muster Brill?' he says. And my man told him, he did, as ye worn't long gone home, not to call it short neither, nor yet very long; leastways ye were gone along home, he said, didn't ye, Pete? Speak up, man, and say what ye know, and doan't sit starin' as though heavin and earth worn't big enough for your eyes to look into." "Woman," said Peter, with unusual effort, "heaven and earth bain't big enough for your tongue to clapper in, nor yet they wouldn't be if t' other place was joined on too." Here Roger struck in afresh. "Lady Relton's Dick said the rats in the stable worn't worth their keep. Lady Relton told him she'd pay the corn for the horses, but the rats would have to go elsewhere if they wanted good grain, as she didn't intend for 'em to have hers. I said I'd go to-morrow, being promised to Farmer Wadsden's ricks to-day; but Dick, he says the world has to stop a turnin' round for my lady, he says, and she were in a taking along of them rats, so to-day I took the pup along and I went up to the Court." "Ah," gasped the landlady; she had not meant to interrupt, but the approach of the pith of the story was too much for her, and with the desperate economy of the schoolboy, who leaves the biggest plum to the last, she again diverted the channel of conversation. "Lady Relton's Dick fetched a gentleman from the station this mornin', and he took him back again an hour past. I knows he did, seeing as I was washing the precious baby's face, or was I hanging out Mrs. Walker's wash? when the dog-cart come by. Was it the gentleman as ye saw up at the Court, Muster Brill?" Few sights are more melancholy than that of a man who has been robbed of his story by another; and good-natured Roger Brill pushed back his chair at this second interruption, and rose to his feet with something like offended dignity. "If ye want to have the talkin' to yourself, missus, I be going to clear out. Cause why? It bain't reasonable to tell a body somethin' fresh when the body have heard it afore, and I ain't the man to spoil t' other body's tale, so good arternoon to ye." But here Peter became peacemaker.