It still wanted some eight or nine minutes to the time when the bell would ring for ‘knocking off’ work, and that interval was used by those present to discuss with their tongues that with which their heads happened to be concerned, for the truth is, that out of the emptiness of the head, much oftener than out of the fulness of the heart, does the mouth speak. ‘Hast heerd news, Myles?’ inquired the lad. The whistle ceased for a moment. ‘What news?’ ‘We have heard say,’ said the other man, ‘as how he’s coming home.’ ‘Who?’ Wilson pointed northwards, over his shoulder, with his thumb. ‘Oh, him!’ said Myles, with again the touch of contempt which came a little too often to his voice. And he shrugged his shoulders--another gesture betraying his unlikeness in temper and temperament to those with whom he was surrounded. ‘Ay, him!’ ‘Is it true?’ inquired Heywood. ‘Don’t know. I’ve only heard say so.’ ‘_Who_ said so?’ ‘Why, I believe it were one of the men from the stables at Mrs. Mallory’s.’ ‘Servants’ gossip!’ said Myles, trenchantly, unsuccessfully trying to turn up his nose. ‘Never believe what they say. Flunkeys by trade, and liars by nature, the whole lot of ’em, or they wouldn’t be where they are.’ ‘I’m none so keen about believing everything that any one says to me,’ said Wilson, with a slightly offended air, ‘but this seems to me so uncommonly probable, with things in the state that they are. Why shouldn’t he come back?’ ‘Ay, why shouldn’t he?’ echoed Ben, the office boy, feeling a dawning sense of coming pleasure in the idea of having given Myles a poser. ‘Why shouldn’t he?’ began Myles. ‘That makes three times as it’s been said,’ observed Ben, with an intelligent smile. ‘Well?’ ‘Young one, keep your fingers out of the pie!’ said Myles, ‘and answer me this--why should he?’ Crestfallen silence on the part of Wilson and Ben, till the former began rather feebly, ‘Well, he’s been abroad for years and years, and when he’s a fine property like this awaiting for him to step into, as it were, and a fine house, and a fine mother----’ ‘Ha, ha!’ said Myles, and his laugh was by no means one of unsophisticated enjoyment. ‘And with things in the state that they are,’ Wilson again repeated, as if much impressed with that state. ‘With these Yankees and Southerners at it like cat and dog, and cotton going up, and no prospect of any end to it yet. Mr. Sutcliffe said to me, he says, ‘Wilson, we don’t know what’s before us yet. If I’m not much mistaken,’ he says, ‘there’ll be a famine in the land before this time next year.’ And I say, if a master shouldn’t come home under those circumstances, when should he?’ ‘Should! Ought!’ repeated Heywood, in sarcastic tones; his scornful smile lighting his face and gleaming in his eyes. ‘What’s that to do with it? I’ll tell you why he couldn’t, and shouldn’t, and won’t come.’ The others settled themselves more attentively in their positions to hear the riddle answered.