“What does she mean?” said John. “Nothing. I should say,” cried Mr. Blotting. “Come, old lady, you’ve given no reason why we shouldn’t pull down your old rookeries that are full of damp and dirt and the rot and mildew. Why, it would be far more comfortable for yourselves. You would be ten times better.” “Dirt yourself, mister,” cried the old woman in high indignation, “unless it’s Sally Brown’s, the woman at the corner, as isn’t true Westgate, there ain’t no dirt more than’s natural. And as for the young lord, you was always told as you’d never rare him. And no more you haven’t, and as for it’s being our well, as we drinks every day, it’s none of our well. And you just let us alone, mister!” She turned instinctively to Mr. Blotting, as to the inferior person of the two, although, old and nearly blind, she did not recognize John. “What’s that story about the lady,” he said. The old woman glared at him with her bleared eyes. “You just let our cottages alone, young gentleman,” she said. “It’s not so easy as you think to mend matters,” said Mr. Blotting. “I could have told you that. You’d better build your new cottages first, and turn them into them before you pull down the old huts.” “And let them die of typhoid in the meantime, like my poor boy.” “Well, if they will, they will--and it’s not you nor me that will stop them,” said Blotting, who in the way of tenants great and small was no optimist. “They don’t care for your conveniences or for what means health to others--but if there’s any money going they would like their share of that.” John had tossed half-a-crown into the old woman’s hand, who caught it with marvellous cleverness considering her bad sight and doubled-up figure, and he had not patience or tranquillity to do more. “We can send the surveyor,” he said, “for see, I can’t be long absent without thinking something must have happened while I’ve been away. Let’s go home.”