Then he remembered that, but for his trouble, he might never have thought of the good to be done. And the good done to him was threefold as much as he could do to others. Every day he grew less selfish, less imperious, less exacting; every day he saw more clearly the good which is in the worst of us. There is a flint of peculiar character—I know not the local name of it—which is found sometimes on the great Chissel Bank, and away towards Lyme Regis. It is as hard, and sullen, and dull a flint (with even the outside polish lost from the chafing of the waves)—a stone as grey and foggy–looking;—as ever Deucalion took the trouble to cast away over the left into an empty world. Yet it has, through the heart of it, traversing it from pole to pole (for its shape is always conical) a thread, a spindle, a siphuncle, of the richest golden hue. None but those who are used to it can see the head of the golden column, can even guess its existence. The stone is not hollow; it is quite distinct from all pudding–stones and conglomerates. Many such flints poor Crad came across, and sought in vain for the beauty of them. He never tried to split them with a hammer, as too many do of our Boanergæ; but he was too young to see or feel the chord of the golden siphuncle. One, especially, one great fellow, was harder and rougher than any flint, like the matrix of the concentric jasper. “Confound that fellow,” said Cradock to himself; “I never shall get at the heart of him. If my pluck were up a little more. Iʼd fight him; though I know he would lick me. Heʼd be sorry for me afterwards.” Issachar Jupp could lick any two men in the court. He was a bargee, of good intentions—at least, when he took to the cuddy; but his horses had pulled crosswise ever since; and the devil knew, better than the angels, what his nature now was. “None of your d—d Scripture–reading for me!” he cried, when Cradock came near him; though the young man had never attempted anything of the sort. He knew that the Word of God is not bread to a blackguardʼs empty belly. And another thing he knew—that he was not of the age and aspect for John Bunyanʼs business. Moreover, Jupp was wonderfully jealous of his wife, a gentle but grimy woman, forty–five years old, whom he larruped every day; although he might be an infidel, he would ensure his wifeʼs fidelity. Nevertheless, he had his pure vein, and Cradock at last got at it. Mrs. and Miss Ducksacre were very good–hearted women, but, like many other women of that fibre, whose education has been neglected, of a hot and hasty order. Not that we need suppose the pepper to be neutralized by the refinement, only to be absorbed more equably, and transfused more generally.