Dadʼs mild mixture soon made its appearance in a battered half–gallon can, and Mr. Jupp was amazed and grieved that none but himself would quaff any. The strongest and headiest stuff it was, which even the publicans of London, alchymists of villainy, can quassify, and cocculise, and nux–vomicise up to proof. Then, the wrath of hunger and thirst being mollified, Issachar begged leave to smoke, if altogether agreeable, and it would all go up the chimney; which, however, it refrained from doing. Now, while he is smoking, I may admit that the contents of Mr. Juppʼs census–paper (if, indeed, he ever made legal entries, after punching the collectorʼs head) have not been transcribed to the satisfaction of the Registrar–General or Home–Office, or whoever or whatever he or it is, who or which insists upon knowing nine times as much about us as we know about ourselves. Mr. Jupp was a bargee of Catholic views; “it warnʼt no odds to he” whether he worked upon wharf or water, sea or river or canal, at coal, or hay, or lime, breeze, or hop–poles, or anything else. Now and then he went down to Gravesend, or up the river to Kingston or Staines; but his more legitimate area was navigable by three canals, where a chap might find time to eat his dinner, and give his wife and nag theirʼn. Issacharʼs love of nature always culminated at one oʼclock; and then how he loved to halt his team under a row of alders, and see the painted meadows gay, and have grub and pipe accordinʼ. His three canals, affording these choice delights unequally, were the Surrey, the Regentʼs, and the Basingstoke. That last was, indeed, to his rural mind, the nearest approach to Paradise; but as there is in all things a system of weights and measures, Mr. Jupp got better wages upon the other two, and so could not very often afford to indulge his love of the beautiful. Hence he kept his household gods within reach of the yellow Tibers, and took them only once a year for a treat upon the Anio. Then would Rachel Jupp and Looey spend a summer month afloat, enjoying the rural glimpses and the sliding quietude of inland navigation, and keeping the pot a–boiling in the state–cabin of the _Enterprise_ or the _Industrious Maiden_. Now Amy having formed Looʼs acquaintance, and said what was right and pretty in gratitude for their entertainment and faithful kindness to Cradock, was just about to leave them, when Issachar Jupp delivered this speech, very slowly, as a man who has got to the marrow and popeʼs–eye of his pipe:— “Now ‘scuse me for axing of you, miss, and if any ways wrong in so doing, be onscrupulous for to say so, and no harm done or taken. But I has my raisons for axing, from things as Iʼve a ‘earʼd him say, and oncommon good raisons too. If you please, what be the arkerate name and dwellinʼ–place of the young gent as saved our Loo? Mr. Clinkers couldnʼt find out, miss, though he knowed as it warnʼt ‘Charles Newman.’”