“Home! Home be ----! and you, too, Mrs. Blacke; we won’t go home till mornin’--shall us, Mr. Fibbes?” Mr. Fibbes, although appearances were much against him, in his linen jacket and high-lows, was a man of politeness where the fair were concerned, so he took a straw out of his mouth, and replied, “Not to cross the missus, when sich is by no means necessary; finish the game first, and then we’ll hargue the pint--that’s what _I_ say.” “O Tom, _pray_ come away,” said poor Gingham, who had caught sight of the chalked-up score, and knew, by sad experience, what havoc it would make with the weekly earnings. “I durstn’t leave the child not a minute longer; I’ve kept your bit of dinner all hot for you--come away, there’s a dear!” “Not I,” said Tom, poising his wooden bowl for a fresh effort, and, irritated by his failure, bursting forth upon his wife. “How _can_ I leave these gentlemen in their game to attend to you? Come, let’s have no nonsense; be off! _be off!_” he repeated, clenching his fist, and raising his voice to a pitch that called forth from the large man the admonitory remark that “_easy does it_,” whilst the little Jew’s eyes glittered at the prospect of winning his game. But Gingham was roused, and she went at him fiercely and at once: “Shame--shame on ye!” she exclaimed, in a low, hoarse voice, gradually rising, as she got more excited, and her pale features worked with passion, “with the child cryin’ at home, and me obliged to come and look for you in such a place as this; me that slaves and toils, and works my fingers to the bone,” holding up her needle-scarred hands to the by-standers, who were already collecting, as they always do when there is a prospect of _a row_. “Call yourself a man!--_a man_, indeed!--and let your wife and child starve whilst you are taking your diversion, and enjoying of yourself here? And you too,” she added, attacking the large man and the Jew with a suddenness which much startled the former, “_you_ ought to be ashamed of yourselves, you ought; keeping of him here, and making of him as bad as yourselves--though perhaps _you’re_ not husbands and fathers, and don’t know no better. Ay, do, you coward! strike a woman if you dare! Was it for this I left my place and my missus? Oh dear, oh dear, whatever shall I do?” and Gingham, throwing her apron over her head, sank upon a bench in a passion of weeping, supported by a phalanx of matrons who had already collected, and who took part in the altercation, as being to all intents and purposes a Government question.