“Why, the money, of coorse. It was the money that done it, bad sess to it,” said Davy, pitching the head of his pipe after the shank. “I went out yonder to get it and I got it. Middling hard work, too, but no matter. It was to be all for her. ‘I’ll come back, Nelly,’ says I, ‘and we’ll take Ballacry and have six craythurs and a pony, and keep a girl to do for you, and you’ll take your aise--only milking maybe, or churning, but nothing to do no harm.’ I was ten years getting it, and I never took notions on no other girls neither. No, honor bright, thinks I, Nelly’s waiting for you, Davy. Always dreaming of her, ‘cept when them lazy black chaps wanted leathering, and that’s a job that isn’t nothing without a bit of swearing at whiles. But at night, aw, at night, mate, lying out on the deck in that heat like the miller’s kiln, and shelling your clothes piece by piece same as a bushel of oats, and looking up at the stars atwinkling in the sky, and spotting one of them, and saying to yourself quietlike, so as them niggers won’t hear, ‘That’s star is atwinkling over Nelly, too, and maybe she’s watching it now.’ It seemed as if we wasn’t so far apart then. Somehow it made the world a taste smaller. ‘Shine on, my beauty,’ thinks I, ‘shine down straight into Nelly’s room, and if she’s awake tell her I’m coming, and if she’s asleep just make her dream that I’m loving nobody else till her.’ But, chut! It was myself that was dreaming. Drink up! She married me for my money, so I’m making it fly.” “And when it’s gone--what then?” said Lovibond. “Will you go back to her!” “Maybe so, maybe no.” “Will anything be the better because the money’s spent?” “God knows.” “Will she be as sweet and good as she once was when you are as poor as you were?” Davy heaved up to his feet. “What’s the use of thinking of the like of that?” he cried. “My money’s mine, I baked for it out in that oven. Now I’m spending it, and what for shouldn’t I? Here goes--healths apiece!” Next day Lovibond and Jenny Crow met on the pier. There they pondered the ticklish situation of their friends, and every word they said on it was pointed and punctuated by a sense of their own relations. “It’s plain that the good fools love each other,” said Jenny. “Quite plain,” said Lovibond. “Heigho! It’s mad work being angry with somebody you are dying to love,” said Jenny. “Colney Hatch is nothing to it,” said Lovibond. “Smaller things have parted people for years,” said Jenny. “Yes; five years,” said Lovibond. “The longer apart the wider the breach, and the harder to cover it,” said Jenny. “Just so,” said Lovibond. “They must meet. Of course they’ll fight like cat and dog, but better that than this separation. Time leaves bigger scars than claws ever made. Now, couldn’t we bring them together?” “Just what I was thinking,” said Lovibond. “I’m sure he must be a dear, simple soul, though I’ve never set eyes on him,” said Jenny.