The afternoon of the famous "indignation meeting" in the Fourth Junior was the afternoon of the week which Mr Cripps the younger, putting aside for a season the anxieties and responsibilities of his "public" duties in Maltby, usually devoted to the pursuit of the "gentle craft," at his worthy father's cottage by Gusset Weir. Loman, who was aware of this circumstance, and on whose spirit that restless top joint had continued to prey ever since the evening of the misadventure a week ago, determined to avail himself of the opportunity of returning the unlucky fishing-rod into the hands from which he had received it. He therefore instructed Stephen to take it up to the lock-house with a note to the effect that having changed his mind in the matter since speaking to Cripps, he found he should not require the rod, and therefore returned it, with many thanks for Mr Cripps's trouble. Stephen, little suspecting the questionable nature of his errand, undertook the commission, and duly delivered both rod and letter into the hands of Mr Cripps, who greatly astonished him by swearing very violently at the contents of the letter. "Well," said he, when he had exhausted his vocabulary (not a small one) of expletives--"well, of all the grinning jackanapeses, this is the coolest go! Do you take me for a fool?" Stephen, to whom this question appeared to be directly applied, disclaimed any idea of the kind, and added, "I don't know what you mean." "Don't you, my young master? All right! Tell Mr Loman I'll wait upon him one fine day, see if I don't! Here's me, given up a whole blessed day to serve him, and a pot of money out of my pocket, and here he goes! not a penny for my pains! Chucks the thing back on my 'ands as cool as a coocumber, all because he's changed his mind. I'll let him have a bit of my mind, tell him, Mr Gentleman Schoolboy, see if I don't. I ain't a-going to be robbed, no! not by all the blessed monkeys that ever wrote on slates! _I'll_ wait upon him, see if I don't!" Stephen, to whom the whole of this oration, which was garnished with words that we can hardly set down in print, or degrade ourselves by suggesting, was about as intelligible as if it had been Hebrew, thought it better to make no reply, and sorrowed inwardly to find that such a nice man as Mr Cripps should possess so short a temper. But the landlord of the Cockchafer soon recovered from his temporary annoyance, and even proceeded to apologise to Stephen for the warmth of his language. "You'll excuse me, young gentleman," said he, "but I'm a plain-spoken man, and I was--there, I won't deny it--I was a bit put out about this here rod first go off. You'll excuse me--of course I don't mean no offence to you or Mister Loman neither, who's one of the nicest young gentlemen I ever met. Of course if you'd a' paid seventy bob out of your own pocket it would give _you_ a turn; leastways, if you was a struggling, honest working man, like me."