“I reckon he’s mad,” says the third, chuckling, “and I don’t mind if he is. My old dog doesn’t need feeding at home since he’s been here. He doesn’t eat no meat himself neither. The widow Nash was reckoning it up, and she says he spends four shillings a week----” “And a shilling here regular,” interjects the landlord. “On groceries, including one-and-six for tobacco. He has four loaves, and I know ‘Kruger’ must have more than half of them.” “And every other week he buys a postal order for two shillings and a penny stamp----” “Pint of mild, mister,” says a tall blear-eyed man who comes in, meekly followed by a small woman, dusty and in rags but neat, to whom he offers the tankard after nearly draining it himself. “Nice weather,” he ventures, smacking his lips. “Yes,” says the landlord discouragingly, and the carter leaves. “Everybody seems to be gone to the flower show,” continues the intruder, “and that’s where I’m going” (here he looks at his boots), “but the best way for sore feet is three days in a tap-room in some good sawdust.” The wife sighs. “The fat woman that weighs twenty-three stone,” says her husband to the company, “is a cousin of mine twice removed, and I have done a bit in the show line myself. It’s a rum business. Better than working in a brewery stables, though. Me and my mate had to go because we got up so early that we burnt too many candles.” The mention of the fat woman rouses the labourers, and one says-- “They say them fat women eats hardly anything at all.” “Very small eater is Daisy. But you see her food does her good. None of it’s wasted.” “That’s it. Her food agrees with her.” The wife sighs. “Now there’s my missus here,” says the husband. “She was one of these pretty gallus dancing-girls who get their fifteen shillings a week. Her food don’t nourish her. Now my brother used to laugh in publics for a pint and he would laugh till they gave him a pint to stop.” “Oh, I can laugh _after_ a pint,” says the wife, “but then I could just as easy cry, I worries so. There’s many a aching heart goes up and down that Great Western Railway in the express trains.” “I never worries, missus,” says a labourer with pursy mouth, short pipe, and head straight up behind from his neck. “Quite right,” says the husband. “My old girl here lives on the fat of the land and is always thin. Her food don’t nourish her. There’s more harm done in the world by a discontented gut than anything else. I think of asking her to try living on her pipe by itself.” “Like Mr. Jones over there,” says one of the labourers. “Mr. Jones? What, my friend Mr. William Jones?” asks the tall man. “Is he a friend of yours?” asks the landlord, curiosity overpowering his natural caution with a man who is selling spectacles at a shilling a pair.