"You might get this done afore night, 'Lizabeth, as I've said over and over again," cried he, plucking up a little spirit. "When a man comes home tired, even if there ain't a bit o' supper for him, he expects a morsel o' fire to sit down to, so as he can smoke his pipe in quiet. It cows him, you see, to find his place in this ruck, where there ain't a dry spot to put the sole of his foot on, and nothing but a table with unekal legs to sit upon, and----" "I might get it done afore?" shrieked Mrs. Carter. "Afore! When, through that Betsy's laziness, leaving everything on my shoulders, I couldn't get in my gloving till four o'clock this afternoon! Every earthly thing have I had to do since then. I raked out my fire----" "What's the good of raking out the fire?" interposed Timothy. "Goodness help the simpleton! Wanting to know the good of raking out the fire--as if he was born yesterday! Can a grate be black-leaded while it's hot, pray?" "It might be black-leaded at some other time," debated he. "In a morning, perhaps." "I dare say it might, if I had not my gloving to do," she answered, trembling with wrath. "When folks takes out shop work, they has to get on with that--and is glad to do it. Where would you be if I earned nothing? It isn't much of a roof we should have over our heads, with your paltry fifteen or sixteen shillings a-week. You be nothing but a parer, remember." "There's no need to disparage of me, 'Lizabeth," he rejoined, with a meek little cough. "You knowed I was a parer before you ventured on me." "Just take your legs up higher, or you'll be knocking my cap with your dirty boots," said Mrs. Carter, who was nearing the table in her scrubbing. "I'll stand outside the door a bit, I think," he answered. "I am in your way everywhere." "Sit where you are, and lift up your legs," was the reiterated command. And Timothy obeyed. Cold and dreary, on he sat, watching the cleaning of the kitchen. The fire gave out no heat, and the squares of bricks did not dry. He took some silver from his pocket, and laid it in a stack on the table beside him, for his wife to take up at her leisure. She allowed him no chance of squandering _his_ wages. A few minutes, and Mrs. Carter rose from her knees and went into the yard for a fresh supply of water. Timothy did not wait for a second ducking. He slipped off the table, took a shilling from the heap, and stole from the house. Back came Mrs. Carter, her pail brimming. "You go over to Dame Buffle's, Tim, and----Why, where's he gone?" He was not in the kitchen, that was certain; and she opened the staircase door, and elevated her voice shrilly. "Are you gone tramping up my stairs, with your dirty boots? Tim Carter, I say, are you upstairs?" Of course Tim Carter was not upstairs: or he had never dared to leave that voice unanswered.