"Yes; he's giving away a sight o' money," said the landlord, "to them as is on strike and wants it. He says to me, only yesterday, when I went across to take him a bit o' Marquory--it was some as we'd got very fine--`Thankye, Robinson,' he says, `so that's Mercury, is it?'--he called it `Mercury.' `I never see any before,' he says. `We call it Good King Henry down in the South.' `Yes, sir,' I says, `that's marquory, and as good a vegetable as you can eat.' `Makes a difference in your trade, this strike, I suppose,' he says. `Our takings aint been above half, sir,' I says, `since it begun.' `Sorry for it,' he says, `sorry for it. I don't dislike to see men come and have their pipe and glass in moderation, and then chat after work; and I'm sure, Robinson,' he says, `you are not the man to let any one exceed.' `Never do if I can help it, sir,' I says; and then he talked for ever so long, and then he took me in and give me a glass o' wine, and shew'd me his silver cups as he'd won at college, and rowing and running, and one thing and another; and when I was coming away he says, `Tell me,' he says, `if you hear of anybody very hard pushed through the strike, and I'll see what I can do.'" "Here's parson's very good health," said Johnson, the butcher; and it was drunk by all present but Sim, who uttered a loud, "Yah!" "They say he's makkin' up to Mrs Glaire, don't they?" said the grocer. "Ay, they say so," said the butcher; "and that owd Purley's sister and Miss Primgeon are both in a regular takkin' about it. They've both been wucking slippers for him." "He was fine and on about Daisy Banks, to-day," said the landlord. "I heerd, too, as Joe Banks quarrelled wi' him for interfering 'bout her, just afore she went." "How did you hear that?" said the grocer. "Joe Banks's Missus towd mine," said the landlord. "But, say, lads, what's this 'bout Bultitude's John Maine?" "Don't know--what?" said first one and then another. "Why, I hear as he was seen talking to a couple of owry-looking poacher chaps, down the road--them two, as they think, had something to do wi' Daisy Banks going off." "Yes, I see 'em," said Sim; "and I see John Maine talking to 'em." "Regular rough couple," continued the landlord. "They comed here just as my Missus was busy wi' her sweeping-brush, and wanted her to buy a three-gill bottle, or give 'em a gill o' ale for it." "And she wouldn't," said Sim, grinning. "Yes, she would, and did," said the landlord. "She was all alone in the house; for I was out in the close, and she thowt it best to be civil to 'em; but she kept a pretty sharp eye on 'em all the time." "Then John Maine's had a hand in it; see if he ain't," said Sim. "Don't know so much about that," said the landlord. "Some say as you know more than you keer to tell." "Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't," said Sim, sententiously. "There's things as I know on, and things as I don't. I'm going now."