"Yes, you're very pretty, and very valuable; but now I've had you six months I don't care tuppence about you, 'specially as I don't want to serve you as we used the old thirty-shilling silver vertical. `Make it ten shillings this time, Mr Dobree--do, please,' I says, one night, `and I've got tuppence in my pocket for the ticket.' `No,' he says; `seven shillings--the old price; take it or leave it,' he says. `Take it,' I says. And so it went on till we lost it. Taboo--taboo!" exclaimed Richard, giving himself a tap on the mouth and putting away his timekeeper. "But I often wonder what's become of the old watch. It was a rum one. You never knowed what it meant to do. One week it was all gain, and another all lose; and the way in which it would shake hands with itself, as if it enjoyed having such a lark, was fine, only it forgot to leave go, and the two hands went round together. Ah, well!--the cases was worth the seven shillings; so Uncle D. didn't lose very much by the last transaction." The door opened, and Mrs Shingle entered, looking plump and well; and, having been very tastefully dressed by a good _modiste_, she was a fair example of what money will do. It must be certainly owned that if she were to be calculated by the standard of refinement, it would have been necessary for her to hold her peace, as at the first words a considerable amount would have had to be taken from her value; but, all the same, there was very little trace left of the homely mechanic's wife. "Well, mother," said Dick, smiling, as she entered, "what's the best news?" "Bad." "Isn't Jessie any better?" he exclaimed anxiously. Mrs Shingle shook her head. "What does she say?" "Nothing," said Mrs Shingle sharply: "she's like her father--has her secrets, and keeps them." "Don't--don't, mother! don't go on like that!" cried Dick imploringly. "I've only got one secret from you." "One, indeed!" said Mrs Shingle, growing red in the face; "but it's such a big one that it's greater than all the things you've told me all your life." "Well, it is a big one, certainly," said Dick, caressing his chin and smiling blandly. "But it's been the making of us." "And you keep it from your own wife, who's been married to you over twenty years." "Over twenty years!" said Dick, smiling at her--"is it, now? Well, I suppose it is. But lor', who'd have thought it? Why, mother, you grow younger and handsomer every day!" "Do I?" said Mrs Shingle, evidently feeling flattered, but angry all the same. "If I do, father, it's not from ease of mind." "Come, come, mother," he said, getting up and putting his arm round her, "don't turn cross about it. I made a sort of promise like, when I thought of the idea that I've worked out into this house and this style of grounds for you, and your watch and chain and joolery, that I'd keep it all a secret." "Then it isn't honest, father."