"Sold good leather," retorted his wife with great sharpness, as if in contempt of her husband's stupidity; "sold good leather--of course he did. That was part of his plan to make people believe he was an honest man. Besides, if he hadn't, how could he have got rid of his stock as he did. Do you recollect," she proceeded with increasing asperity, as became a Cowfold matron, "as it was him as got up that petition for that Catchpool gal as was going to be hanged for putting her baby in the pond?" "His father," quoth Mr. Cattle, inclining again to his wife's side, "had a glass eye, and I've heerd his mother was a Papist." "Well," interrupted Miriam at last, "what if he did set fire to his house?" They all looked amazed. "What if he did! what if he did!" repeated Mr. Cattle; "why, it's arson, that's all." "Oh, that's saying the same thing over again." "He'll be transported, that's 'what if he did,'" interposed Mrs. Cattle. "I suppose," said Miriam, "he wanted to get money out of the Insurance Office. It was wrong, but he hasn't done much harm except to the office, and they can afford it." They were all still more amazed, and justly, for Miriam, amongst her other peculiarities, did not comprehend how society necessarily readjusts the natural scale of reward and punishment. "'Pon--my--word," exclaimed Mrs. Cattle, after a long pause, slowly dwelling on each syllable, "hasn't--done--much--harm; and for aught we know, in a month, or at most six weeks, he'll be tried, and then after that, in a fortnight, he may be on his way to Botany Bay. What do you think, Mr. Tacchi?" Giacomo did not occupy the same position as his daughter. His eyes were screwed very nearly, although not quite, to the conventional angle; but he loved her, and had too much sense not to see that she was often right and Cowfold was wrong. Moreover, he enjoyed her antagonism to the Cattles, of whose intellect he had not, as a clock and barometer maker, a very high opinion. He evaded the difficulty. "He hasn't been convicted yet." "That's true," said Mr. Cattle, to whom, as an Englishman, the principle of not passing sentence till both sides are heard was happily familiar. It was a great thought with him, and he re-expressed it with earnestness--"That's true enough." But Miriam did not let them off. "I want to know if he is as bad as those contractors that father was reading about in the newspaper last week, who filled up the soldiers' boots between the soles with clay. If they hadn't been found out, the poor soldiers would have gone marching with those boots, and might have been out in the wet, and might have died." "Ah!" retorted Miss Cattle, "that's all very well; but that isn't arson." Miss Cattle was not quite so absurd as she seemed. The contractors' crime was not catalogued with an ugly name. It was fraud or breach of contract, and that of course made all the difference.