"Then I'll speak plainer. Where was the sense to blurt out afore a lot o' naybours as _you_'d see I didn' come to want? Be I the kind o' woman to take any help but my own man's?--even if you had it to give, which 'tis well be-known as you haven't." "Oh, damn!" He swore as if a wasp had stung him: and indeed he had jabbed the point of the trowel into his jaw. After a pause he added, "The naybours know--do they?--as I couldn' act up to what I promised that woman, not if I tried. Very well, then. Where's the harm done? . . . I cleared her out, anyway." Mrs Penhaligon eyed him with pity for a moment. "Yes," she sighed, "that's just the plumb-silly way my Sam would talk: and often enough he've a-driven me just wild with it. Men be all of one mould. . . . Mr Nanjivell, you've no great experience o' women. But did 'ee ever know a woman druv to the strikes[1] by another woman? An' did 'ee ever know a woman, not gone in the strikes, that didn' keep some wit at the back of her temper? . . . _I_ was dealin' with Mrs Polsue, don't you make any mistake." "It struck me that she had been distressin' you, an' you'd be glad to get the rids of her." "So I _was_ in distress. But I had th' upper hand, 'specially wi' those women hearkenin' and every one hatin' her. . . . What must happen, but forth you steps with a 'Leave this to me. _I_'ll look after Mrs Penhaligon. _I_'ll see _she_ don't come to want'--all as bold as a fire-hose. '_I_'ll clear 'ee out o' this house, which is _our_ house,' says you--or to that effect. I wasn' so mad but, when I heard 'ee, there was time to glimpse mother Climoe's face. Oh yes! I know what you'll be sayin'. 'Talk, is it?' you'll be sayin', just like my Sam: an' 'Let them talk. What's talk?'--an' talk, all the time, two-thirds of every decent woman's life!" "I never heard such dratted nonsense in all my born days." "That's because you was never married. You'd have heard it from a wife, half your time: though I dare say"--Mrs Penhaligon sighed-- "'twould ha' been with you like the rest. . . . 'A nice cauch Mr Nanjivell's made of it,' said I to myself, getting back to the kitchen: 'but he's under notice to quit: and if he quits quick an' delicate, mebbe there's no great harm done.' So I came along to ask you about it." At this point Nicky-Nan fairly lost command of his temper.