"'Tisn' a ''oo,' 'tis an 'it': bein' an expression I got off an Extension Lecturer they had down to Bodmin, one time. I'd a great hankerin', in those days, to measure six foot two in my socks afore I finished growin', and I signed on for his lectures in that hope. With a man callin' his-self by that name and advertisin' as he'd lecture on 'Measure for Measure,' I thought I'd a little bit of all right. But he ran right off the rails an' chatted away about the rummiest things, such as theatricals. I forget what switched 'en off an' on to that partic'lar line: but I well remember his openin' remark. He said, 'To measure the true stature of a great man we must go down to the true roots. A certain Jane is bound to overtake us if we dig too long among the common 'taturs with their un-stopp'd lines an' weak endings and this or that defective early quest. Oh! all profitable, no doubt, an' worth cultivatin' so long as we do not look for taste.' When I woke up at the end 'twas with these words printed in mind same as they've remained. But I couldn' figure out how this here Jane got mixed up in the diet. So, bein' of a practical mind then, in my 'teens, same as I be to-day, I stopped behind and asked him--takin' care to look bright and intelligent--who might be this Jane he'd allooded to. If you'll believe me, it turned out to be no person at all, but a way the gentry have of sayin' they're uncomfortable; same as, through some writin' chap or other, all the papers was talkin' of your belly as your Little Mary." "Mine?" "When I say 'yours,' o' course I mean to say 'ours'--that's to say, every one's." Rat-it-all made a semicircular sweep of the hand in front of his person. "Something of a liberty, I should say, however many you include. What I object to in these newspapers is the publicity. . . . But, if you ask my opinion, that Extension fellow made a start with pullin' your leg."