"This is my affair," cried Richard. "Bombast and sound," said his mother. "I suppose you and Slee are in collusion, and this is done to blind me, and the rest of the town. But there, you must follow your own course." "I mean to," said Richard; and the breach between him and his mother seemed to be getting wider than ever. Volume 2, Chapter XI. A FRIENDLY MEETING. There was a goodly meeting at the Bull and Cucumber that evening, for the discussion of the disappearance of Daisy Banks. Sim Slee was there, and one of the chief spokesmen. "Well, what do you say, Sim?" said the landlord, with a wink at his other guests, as much as to say, "Let's draw him out." "Say!" cried Sim; "why, that Dick Glaire's a lungeing villin. Look at him: a man fixed in business as he is, and plenty o' money, and he knows nowt but nastiness. He ought to be hung." "Where weer you to-day, Sim?" said another. "I didn't see thee helping." "Helping!" said Sim; "why, I was in the thicket all day. Search indeed! what's the good o' searching for what aint theer?" "Do you know wheer she is?" said the landlord. "If yow want to know wheer Daisy Banks is, ask Dicky Glaire, and--" "And what?" said several, for Sim had stopped short. "And he wean't tell yow," said Sim. "He knows, though. Why, he's been mad after the lass for months; and if she weer my bairn, I'd half kill him; that's what I'd do wi' him. He's a bad lot, and it's a pity as Dumford can't get shoot of him. Such rubbish! he's ony fit to boon the roads." "Well, Sim," said the grocer, "when they make you boon master, you can use him up o' purpose." "Hello!" said Sim, "what! are yow here? I thowt as the Bull and Cowcumber wasn't good enew for such as thee." "You niver thowt so, Sim," said the jovial little grocer, laughing, "till I wouldn't give thee any more credit till thou had paid what thee owdst." "I can pay yow any day," said Sim, chinking the money in his pocket. "Yes, but yow wean't," said the grocer, imitating Sim's broad Lincoln dialect. "Yes, I wanted to hear a bit o' the news," he continued, "so I thowt I'd put up the shuts and have a gill and a pipe, same as another man; for I niver object to my 'lowance, as is good for any man as works hard." "So 'tis, so 'tis," chorussed several. "How chuff we are to-night," said Sim, with a sneer; "why, yow're getting quite sharp. Yow wearn't so nation fast wi' your tongue fore yow took to trade and was only a bricklayer. It's all very fine for a man to marry a grocer's widow, and take to her trade and money, and then come and teach others, and bounce about his money." "Oh, I'm not ashamed of having handled the mortar-trowel before I took to the sugar-scoop," said the grocer, laughing. "When it used to be to the boy," continued Sim, mimicking the other's very slow drawling speech: "`Joey, wilt thou bring me another brick?' and then thou used to groan because it weer so heavy." "Sim Slee's in full swing to-night," said another guest.