"But it's true enough for all that, Simon: how d'ye manage it, eh, boy? much like me, I s'pose; wages every quarter from the maids, dues from tradesmen Christmas-tide and Easter, regular as Parson Evans's; pretty little bits tacked on weekly to the bills, beside presents from every body; and so, boy, my poor forty pounds a-year soon mounts up to a hundred." "Ay, ay, Aunt Bridget--but I get the start of you, though you probably were born a week before-hand: talk of parsons, look at me, a regular grand pluralist monopolist, as any bishop can be; butler in doors, bailiff out of doors, land-steward, house-steward, cellar-man, and pay-master. I am not all this for naught, Aunt Quarles: if so much goes through my fingers, it is but fair that something stick." "True, Simon--O certainly; but if you come to boasting, my boy, I don't carry this big bunch o' keys for nothing neither. Lord love you! why merely for cribbings in the linen-line for one month, John Draper swapped me that there shawl: none o' my clothes ever cost me a penny, and I a'n't quite as bare as a new-born baby neither. Look at them trunks, bless you!" "Ay, ay, aunt, I'll be bound the printer of your prayer-book has left out a 'not,' before the 'steal,' eh?--ha! ha!" "Fie, naughty Simon, fie! them's not stealings, them's parquisites. Where's the good o' living in a great house else? But come, Si, haven't you struck out the 'not,' for yourself, though the printer did his duty, eh, Nep?" "Not a bit, aunt--not a bit: all sheer honesty and industry. Look at my pretty little truck-shop down the village. Wo betide the labourer that leaves off dealing there! not one that works at Hurstley, but eats my bread and bacon; besides the 'tea, coffee, tobacco, and snuff.'" "Pretty fairish articles, eh? I never dealt with you, Si: no, Nep, no--you never saw the colour o' my money." Jennings gave a start, as if a thought had pricked him; but gayly recovering himself, said, "Oh, as to pretty fairish, I know there is one thing about the bacon good enough; ay, and the bread too--the very best of prices; ha! ha! is not that good? And for the other genuine articles, I don't know that much of the tea comes from China--and the coffee is sold ground, because it is burnt maize--and there's a plenty of wholesome cabbage leaf cut up in the tobacco--while as for snuff, I give them a dry, peppery, choky, sneezy dust, and I dare say that it does its duty." It was astonishing how innocently the worthy couple laughed together.