"--All the same when that furriner chap looks up in Tresidder's kitchen an' says 'My name is Zebedee Minards,' you might ha' blown me down wi' a puff; an' says I to mysel', wakin' up last night an' thinkin'--'I'll ax a question of Old Zeb when I sees en, blest if I don't.'" "Then why in thunder don't 'ee make haste an' do it?" Uncle Issy, after revolving the question for another fifteen seconds, produced it in this attractive form-- "Old Zeb, bein' called Zeb, why did 'ee call Young Zeb, Zeb?" Old Zeb ceased to knock the clods about, descended the path, and leaning on his visgy began to contemplate the opposite slope of the coombe, as if the answer were written, in letters hard to decipher, along the hill-side. "Well, now," he began, after opening his mouth twice and shutting it without sound, "folks may say what they like o' your wits, Uncle, an' talk o' your looks bein' against 'ee, as they do; but you've a-put a twister, this time, an' no mistake." "I reckoned it a banger," said the old man, complacently. "Iss. But I had my reasons all the same." "To be sure you had. But rabbet me it I can guess what they were." "I'll tell 'ee. You see when Zeb was born, an' the time runnin' on for his christ'nin', Rachel an' me puzzled for days what to call en. At last I said, 'Look 'ere, I tell 'ee what: you shut your eyes an' open the Bible, anyhow, an' I'll shut mine an' take a dive wi' my finger, an' we'll call en by the nearest name I hits on.' So we did. When we tuk en to church, tho', there was a pretty shape. 'Name this cheeld,' says Pa'son Babbage. 'Selah,' says I, that bein' the word we'd settled. 'Selah?' says he: 'pack o' stuff! that ain't no manner o' name. You might so well call en Amen.' So bein' hurried in mind, what wi' the cheeld kickin', an' the water tricklin' off the pa'son's forefinger, an' the sacred natur' of the deed, I cudn' think 'pon no name but my own; an' Zeb he was christened." "Deary me," commented Uncle Issy, "that's a very life-like history. The wonder is, the self-same fix don't happen at more christ'nin's, 'tis so very life-like." A silence followed, full of thought. It was cut short by the rattle of wheels coming down the road, and Young Zeb's grey mare hove in sight, with Young Zeb's green cart, and Young Zeb himself standing up in it, wide-legged. He wore a colour as fresh as on Christmas morning, and seemed none the worse for his adventure. "Hello!" he called, pulling up the mare; "'mornin', Uncle Issy-- 'mornin', father." "Same to you, my son. Whither away?--as the man said once." "Aye, whither away?" chimed Uncle Issy; "for the pilchards be all gone up Channel these two months." "To Liskeard, for a chest-o'-drawers." Young Zeb, to be ready for married life, had taken a house for himself--a neat cottage with a yard and stable, farther up the coombe. But stress of business had interfered with the furnishing until quite lately. "Rate meogginy, I suppose, as befits a proud tradesman."