"’Tis all that and more," declared Mr. Screech. "And if you’d gone in--and you’ll always be welcome, Moses--you’d have found my wife fresh as paint herself in her new print, and, what’s still more wonderful, my mother with her hair all twisted tidy and her clothes neat as ninepence. I would have it, you must know. ’Us must pull ourselves together,’ I said to mother. ’Dorcas comes from a terrible tidy family,--too tidy, you might say, and I’m not pretending I mind the fowls in the kitchen myself, or the dogs on the beds; but there ’tis--with a bride we must meet her halfway; and she’s as clean and trim herself as a hen hedge-sparrow.’ My mother made no objection--took to her second-best dress without a murmur, and bought a new one for the Lord’s Day." "You’re a reformed character, in fact," declared Maunder. "And I for one rejoice at it, for I’ve often feared you and me might some day meet in an unfriendly way when I stood for the law." "Don’t fear it," answered the other. "I’m all right and full of contrivances for making a bit of money in a straight and proper manner." "David tells me your rabbit trap is the wonderfullest thing in that line he’ve met with, and good for ten pounds to sell," put in Bartley. "More like twenty," answered Screech. "’Tis a masterpiece of a trap, and I’ve had a good offer or two already, but not enough." "We get more greedy after money when we’m married, I suppose," ventured Snell. "Of course we want more then." "We ought to have more. We’re worth more," answered Billy. "The moment a man takes a serious hand in the next generation, he becomes a more dignified object and ought to fetch better money, for the sake of the wife and family. A married man ought to have better wages and be rewarded according to his breeding powers." "And the women too. ’Tis a great fault in the State that our women don’t make a penny by getting children," declared Moses. "Unless they bring forth three at a birth," said Mr. Shillabeer. "Then ’tis well known that the Queen’s Majesty sends three pounds out of her own money, to show that ’tis a glorious feat, in her gracious opinion." "Well, we single men had better waste no more time, if Billy is right," said Mattacott. "For my part I’ve been looking round cautious for two years now; but I haven’t found the right party. ’Tis the married girls I always feel I could have falled in love with, not the maidens." "Just t’other way with me," declared Bartley. "I like the unexpected things the girls say and do. The ways of a woman are like the ways of the mist: past all finding out." "True," declared Mr. Screech. "I know a bit about ’em; and shall know more come presently. But like the mist you’ll find ’em." "Now here, now away again," continued Bartley. "Now lying as still and as white as washing on the hill, now scampering off, hell for leather, without rhyme or reason. And so with them: they never do the expected thing."