Certainly, why _should_ he? I, who took no part in all this but as a respectful listener, felt that there was much reason in what my brother said. It was true that, having imbibed from my nurses a profound veneration for my native county, I was rather shocked at any posture (though but in a hypothetical case) of defiance to Lancashire; and yet, if three out of four capital L's had been repulsed in some mysterious offense, I felt that it was mere equity to repulse the fourth. But I prepared anxiously to say, on the authority of my last nurse, that Lancashire (I felt sure) was not the county to offer him any "jaw," whatever _that_ might be. Unhappily, in seeking for words, which came very slowly at all times, to express my benevolent meaning, the opportunity passed over for saying any thing at all on the subject; but, though wounded by his squaring at Lancashire, I yet felt considerable respect for a brother who could thus resolutely set his arms a-kimbo against three tall counties, two of them tolerably fat, and one decent market-town. The ordinary course of our day's warfare was this: between nine and ten in the morning, occurred our first transit, and consequently our earliest opportunity for doing business. But at this time the great sublunary interest of breakfast, which swallowed up all nobler considerations of glory and ambition, occupied the work-people of the factory (or what in the brutal pedantry of this day are termed the "operatives"), so that very seldom any serious business was transacted. Without any formal armistice, the paramount convenience of such an arrangement silently secured its own recognition. Notice there needed none of truce, when the one side yearned for breakfast, and the other for a respite; the groups, therefore, on or about the bridge, if any at all, were loose in their array, and careless. We passed through them rapidly, and, on my part, uneasily; exchanging only a few snarls, but seldom or ever snapping at each other. The tameness was almost shocking of those who in the afternoon would inevitably resume their natural characters of tiger-cats, wolves, and hunting-leopards. Sometimes, however, my brother felt it to be a duty that we should fight in the morning, particularly when any expression of public joy for a victory--bells ringing in the distance, or when a royal birthday, or some traditional commemoration of ancient feuds (such as the 5th of November), irritated his martial propensities. These being religious festivals, seemed to require of us some _extra_ homage, for which we knew not how to find any natural or significant expression, except through sharp discharges of stones, that being a language older than Hebrew or Sanscrit, and universally intelligible. But excepting these high days of religious solemnity, when a man is called upon to show that he is not a Pagan or a miscreant in the eldest of senses, by thumping, or trying to thump, somebody who is accused or accusable of being