"Please to come in, varmer. Please to sot down, Mary," said Master, as he received the groaning pilgrims into his tiny owlery, "varmer" being the correct and lawful title of every commoner. "Have a drop o' cider, will ye? You'm welcome. I knows you be main cruel fond of a drop o' cider, varmer." Peter was past cider just then. He groaned and Mary moaned, and they both doubled up in their chairs; while Master arranged his beautiful spectacles, and looked at them in a learned fashion, and at last hit upon the brilliant idea that they were afflicted with spasms of the abdomen. "You've been yetting too many worts?" he suggested with kindly sympathy. "Us be tilling peas in our bellies," explained Mary. . Master had not much sense of humour. He thought at first the remark was made seriously, and he began to upbraid them for venturing on such daring experiments. But Mary went on: "Us bought pills to Goosie Vair, 'cause us ha' got too much oil in our livers, and us bought stinking-peas tu. Us ha' swallowed the peas, and tilled the pills. Us be gripped proper, so us ha' come right to wance to yew." Master replied that they had done wisely. He played with his books, wiped his spectacles, and dusted the snuff from his nose with a handkerchief as big as a bath-towel. Then he folded his gnarled hands peacefully across his brass watch-chain, and talked to them like a good physician. "I'll tell ye why you'm gripped," he said. "'Tis because you swallowed them peas instead o' the pills. Du'ye understand what I be telling?" Peter and Mary answered that so far they were quite able to follow him, and Mary added: "A cruel kind larned man be Master. Sees a thing to wance, he du." "Us ha' got innards, and they'm called vowels," Master went on. "Some calls 'em intestates, but that be just another name for the same thing. Us ha' got five large vowels, and two small ones. The large ones be called _a, e, i, o, u_, and the small ones be called _w_ and _y_. I can't tell ye why, but 'tis so. Some of them peas yew ha' swallowed have got into _a_, and some ha' got into _o_, and mebbe some ha' got into _w_ and _y_. Du'ye understand what I mean?" The invalids replied untruthfully that they did, while Peter stated that Master had done him good already. "They be growing there, and 'tis the growing that gripes ye. Du'ye understand that?" continued Master. Peter ventured to ask how much growth might be looked for. "They grows six foot and more, if they bain't stopped," said Master ominously. "How be us to stop 'em?" wailed Mary. "I'll tell ye," said Master. "Yew mun get home and bide quiet, and not drink. Then mebbe the peas will wilt off and die wi'out taking root." "Shall us dig up the pills and tak' some?" Suggested Peter.