The lady modestly hesitated to reply, lest there should be any impropriety in holding an interview with Mr. Bumble with closed doors. Mr. Bumble, taking advantage of the hesitation, and being very cold himself, shut it without farther permission. “Hard weather, Mr. Bumble,” said the matron. “Hard, indeed, ma’am,” replied the beadle. “Anti-porochial weather this, ma’am. We have given away, Mrs. Corney,—we have given away a matter of twenty quartern loaves and a cheese and a half this very blessed afternoon; and yet them paupers are not contented.” “Of course not. When would they be, Mr. Bumble?” said the matron, sipping her tea. “When, indeed, ma’am!” rejoined Mr. Bumble. “Why, here’s one man that, in consideration of his wife and large family, has a quartern loaf and a good pound of cheese, full weight. Is he grateful, ma’am,—is he grateful? Not a copper farthing’s worth of it! What does he do, ma’am, but ask for a few coals, if it’s only a pocket-handkerchief full, he says! Coals!—what would he do with coals?—Toast his cheese with ’em, and then come back for more. That’s the way with these people, ma’am;—give ’em a apron full of coals to-day, and they’ll came back for another the day after to-morrow, as brazen as alabaster.” The matron expressed her entire concurrence in this intelligible simile, and the beadle went on. “I never,” said Mr. Bumble, “see anything like the pitch it’s got to. The day afore yesterday, a man—you have been a married woman, ma’am, and I may mention it to you—a man, with hardly a rag upon his back (here Mrs. Corney looked at the floor), goes to our overseer’s door when he has got company coming to dinner, and says, he must be relieved, Mrs. Corney. As he wouldn’t go away, and shocked the company very much, our overseer sent him out a pound of potatoes and half a pint of oatmeal. ‘My God!’ says the ungrateful villain, ‘what’s the use of _this_ to me? You might as well give me a pair of iron spectacles ‘Very good,’ says our overseer, taking ’em away again, ‘you wont get anything else here.’—‘Then I’ll die in the streets!’ says the vagrant.—‘Oh no, you wont,’ says our overseer.” “Ha! ha!—that was very good!—so like Mr. Grannet, wasn’t it?” interposed the matron. “Well, Mr. Bumble?” “Well, ma’am,” rejoined the beadle, “he went away and _did_ die in the streets. There’s a obstinate pauper for you!” “It beats anything I could have believed,” observed the matron, emphatically. “But don’t you think out-of-door relief a very bad thing any way, Mr. Bumble? You’re a gentleman of experience, and ought to know. Come.” “Mrs. Corney,” said the beadle, smiling as men smile who are conscious of superior information, “out-of-door relief, properly managed,—properly managed, ma’am,—is the porochial safeguard. The great principle of out-of-door relief is to give the paupers exactly what they don’t want, and then they get tired of coming.” “Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Corney. “Well, that is a good one, too!”