Well, yes, Mrs. Tomlett thought it might be in both. His side also had got grazed. Her full opinion was, if she might venture to express it, that he had done it a climbing up into his boat. One blessed thing was--no bones was broke. Miss Thornycroft laughed, and thought she might as well leave her to the peeling of the potatoes, the interruption to which essential duty had possibly driven her senses away. "At any rate, whatever the hurt, I hope he will soon be about again," she kindly said, as she went out. "Which he is a'most that a'ready," responded Mrs. Tomlett, standing on the threshold to curtsey to her guest. No sooner was the door shut than Tomlett, a short, strong, dark man, with a seal-skin cap on, and his right arm bandaged up, came limping out of an inner room. The first thing he did was to glare at his wife; the second, to bring his left hand in loud contact with the small round table so effectually that the potatoes went flying off it. "Now what do _you_ think of yourself for a decent woman?" Mrs. Tomlett sat down on a chair and began to cry. "It took to me, Ben, it did--it took to me awful," she said, deprecatingly, in the midst of her tears; "I never knowed as news of the hurt had got abroad." "Do you suppose there ever was such a born fool afore as _you?_" again demanded Mr. Tomlett, in a slow, subdued, ironical, fearfully telling tone. "When she come straight in with the query--what was Tomlett's hurt and how were it done?--my poor body set on a twittering, and my head went clean out o' me," pleaded Mrs. Tomlett. "A pity but it had gone clean _off_ ye," growled the strong-minded husband; "'tain't o' no good _on_." "What were I to say, took at a pinch like that? I couldn't tell the truth; you know that, Tomlett." "Yes, you could; you might ha' told enough on't to satisfy her:--'He was at work, and he fell and hurt hisself.' Warn't that enough for any reasonable woman to say? And if she'd asked where he fell, you might ha' said you didn't know. Not you! He 'throwed hisself down the stairs,' when there ain't no stairs to the place; he 'fell out o' the tallet;' he 'done it a climbing up into his boat!' Yah!" "Don't be hard upon me, Tomlett, don't." "'And the hurt,' she asked, 'was that in the leg?'" mercilessly continued Mr. Tomlett. "'No, it weren't in the leg, it were in the arm, leastways, in the ankle,' says you; and a fine bobbin o' contradiction that must ha' sounded to her. Yah again! Some women be born fools, and some makes theirselves into 'em." "It were through knowing you'd get a listening, Tomlett. Nothing never scares the wits out o' me like that. When I see the door open a straw's breadth, I knew your ear was at it; and what with her afore me talking, and you ahind me listening, I didn't know the words I said no more nor if it wasn't me that spoke 'em. Do what I will, I'm blowed up."