I didn't really know about the cartridges, but at least _I_ was--and Elsie liked it very well. The fellows who talk a lot at such times never get on with girls. CHAPTER XXXVIII A FIT OF THE SULKS Jove, wasn't it just ripping to think that at last a chap could go where he liked, and do what he liked--all that horrid lot at the Grange being either dead or with the locksmith's fingers between them and the outside world! Ripping? Rather! It was like a new earth. All the same, you have no idea what a show place the ruined Grange became. Old Bailiff Ball stayed on and made a pretty penny by showing the people over. Especially the weaving-room, and where old Hobby sat, and the keyhole through which Elsie peeped to see her grandfather as if praying over the loom, with Jeremy's knife hafted between his shoulder blades! I think they would have had a magic lantern next! But finally this was stopped by the police people. For Miss Orrin was still to be tried, and all the money that could be got out of the grounds of Deep Moat Grange was to be given back to the friends and relatives of the people who had been "arranged for." But the mischief was, nobody wanted to buy, and the whole place was in danger of going to rack and ruin. As for me, I took to wandering about a good deal there. Maybe I was love-sick--though I hope not, for my good name's sake. At least, it was about this time father said that we were far too young for any thought of marriage, but that Elsie could stay on in our house. Then Elsie was not happy, and was all the time wanting to go back to Nance Edgar's and her teaching at Mr. Mustard's--because my mother had got accustomed to the Caw girls, Harriet and Constantia, by this time, and could not bear the thought of parting with them. So Elsie, of course, would not stay, and go she did, as you shall hear. We could have had some pretty good times, she and I, but for this worry. Father was about as fond of Elsie as I was (owing to the time behind the Monks' Oven). But, of course, he would not go openly against mother--that is, not in the house. It was not to be expected. If it had been anything to do with the shop or business, he would simply have told mother to mind her own affairs. And mother would have done it, too. But with the house it was different. Well, all this made me pretty melancholy--with no more stand-up in me than a piece of chewed string. I read poetry, too, on the sly--such rot, as I now see--never anything written plain out, but all the words twisted, the grammar all tail foremost, and no sense at all mostly. I don't wonder nowadays people only use it in church to sing--and even then never think of bringing away their hymn books with them.