“I would,” said Elijah, with a feeling of “All for love, or the world well lost.” “You? Od rabbet, what for?” “I’d give you a fiver!” parried the knacker in his reckless passion. “Though most people let me have ’em for the trouble of killing ’em,” he added incautiously. The old man sprang up again. “Git out o’ my house! And don’t ye dare cross my doorstep agen!” Elijah cowered back in his seat. “But I’ve come on business,” he protested. “Oi bain’t a-gooin’ to sell Methusalem.” “That’s not what I came for,” Elijah urged soothingly. “It’s about Jinny.” “Oi bain’t a-gooin’ to sell Jinny neither.” Elijah winced. Was it divination or drivel, he wondered. “You might as well sell her,” he said boldly. “Look how she’s mucking up your business, muddling everything.” And rising and pulling out the pot again, he banged it down on the table. “My Jinny muddle things! Git out o’ my house!” Before the Gaffer’s blazing spectacles and furious fangs Elijah backed doorwards. “Not before it’s set right,” he said, assured of his line of retreat. “The Quarleses don’t make muddles. For a hundred year——” “Oh, Jinny’s been all right the last hundred years,” he interrupted impatiently. “It’s the last few weeks I complain about! I hope it’s not sunstroke.” “My Jinny!” The Gaffer’s anger died. “She went away singin’ as merry as could be, my little mavis,” he said anxiously. “Then what do you make of that?” Elijah indicated the pot. The old man unwrapped it slowly, and readjusting his spectacles spelt out the label. “Oliver’s Depil—Depil—” he stumbled on. “Is that pills?” “No, it’s for the hair.” “Well, that’s what you want, ain’t it?” he said naïvely. Mr. Skindle coloured up. “But this is to take off the hair,” he explained. “Well, you can’t do that,” chuckled Daniel, “bein’ more a ’Lisha than a ’Lijah.” “Oh yes, I can,” said Elijah, his every dot bristling. “But if I hadn’t been a noticing man, I should have undone all the good of months of my pots of hair-restorer.” “Whichever way it be, ’tis agen Nature,” said the Gaffer. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. But pots be as like as peas. That’s the shopman’s fault, not Jinny’s.” “Oh, indeed!” cried Elijah savagely. “And what about her bringing me hairpins?” “Hairpins!” gasped the Gaffer. “Hairpins for a man without hair!” “Even Samson in his prime didn’t want hairpins!” Elijah pointed out angrily. “But that’s what she brought me a packet of last week, instead of tobacco.” “Sarve ye right, ye unswept chimbley,” the Gaffer growled, with a grin. “That ain’t serving me right,” riposted Elijah. “That’s serving me wrong,” he added with redoubled wit. “And wouldn’t take ’em back neither, the little minx, maintained I’d ordered ’em for my ma.” “Well, _she’d_ want hairpins, wouldn’t she, with all that beautiful raven hair,” said the Gaffer, turning serious. “Happen you ordered ’em for her.” “I never order anything for her,” said Elijah, waiving the description of her chevelure.