Before the day was out the parson found his cough troublesome, and of course went to Mrs. Clowes for horehound-drops. “Well, what do you think of young Cheat-the-fishes now?” came raspily from his lips, as he leaned on the counter, evidently prepared for a gossip, shop-chairs being unheard-of superfluities in those days. Mrs. Clowes knew perfectly well whom the parson meant by “young Cheat-the-fishes”; indeed, the boy, on his rare holidays, had been a customer, as were the boys of College and Grammar School generally. “Now! Why, what’s th’ lad been doing? Naught wrong, I reckon?” You see she had faith in the boy’s open countenance. “Humph! that’s as folk think,” he growled, keeping his own opinion to himself. “I don’t suppose I need to tell you the hubbub there’s been over there” (jerking his finger in the direction of the College) “about the stolen milk? That tale’s old enough.” Mrs. Clowes nodded her mob-cap in assent. “Well, that lad Jabez found a snake, four feet long, with its head in the milk pans the other morning. The sly thief turned spiteful, and the two had a battle-royal all to themselves in the cellar. The pugnacious rapscallion had a whip in his hand, and he—lashed the snake to death!” Mrs. Clowes echoed his last words, and uplifted her hands in amazement. A snake was a terrible reptile to her. “Ah! and then blubbered like a cry-a-babby because he had killed it! What do you think of that, Dame Clowes?” “Eh! I think he was a brave little chap to face a sarpent, but I think a fine sight more of his blubbering, as you call it,” said she, taking a tin canister from a shelf, and putting it on the counter with an emphatic bounce. “Ah! I thought I could match the young fool with an old one,” said he derisively, to hide his own satisfaction, as he took his short legs to the door. But Mrs. Clowes called him back, put a large paper parcel in his hand, and said, “Here, Jotty, see you give these sweetmeats to your cry-a-babby, and tell him an old woman says there’s no harm in fighting in self-defence with any kind of a snake, or for his own good name, or to protect the helpless; but, if he fights just to show off his own bravery, he’s a coward. And you tell him from me never to be ashamed of tears he has shed in repentance for injury he may have done to any living thing. Now see you tell him, parson; and maybe my preachment may be worth more to him than my cakes and toffy, or your sermons.” And she nodded her head till her cap-border flapped like a bird’s wings. “Ugh! dame, you’ll be for wagging that tongue and mutch of yours in my pulpit next,” said he, gruffly. But he delivered the parcel and the “preachment” both faithfully, and, moreover, turned over his stores of old school books for a Latin grammar, which he put into the hand of Jabez, with a promise to instruct the boy in the language, if he would like to learn.