The great ugly sow came leering up as he spoke. “Why don’t you fatten her up, and devour her, the old gargoyle? She’s an offence to the universe.” “Nay—she’s a fine sow.” I snorted, and he laughed, and the old sow grunted with contempt, and her little eyes twisted towards us with a demoniac leer as she rolled past. “What are you going to do to-night!” I asked. “Going out?” “I’m going courting,” he replied, grinning. “Oh!—wish _I_ were!” “You can come if you like—and tell me where I make mistakes, since you’re an expert on such matters.” “Don’t you get on very well then?” I asked. “Oh, all right—it’s easy enough when you don’t care a damn. Besides, you can always have a Johnny Walker. That’s the best of courting at the Ram Inn. I’ll go and get ready.” In the kitchen Emily sat grinding out some stitching from a big old hand-machine that stood on the table before her: she was making shirts for Sam, I presumed. That little fellow, who was installed at the farm, was seated by her side firing off words from a reading book. The machine rumbled and rattled on, like a whole factory at work, for an inch or two, during which time Sam shouted in shrill explosions like irregular pistol shots: “Do—not—pot——” “Put!” cried Emily from the machine; “put——” shrilled the child, “the soot—on—my—boot,”——there the machine broke down, and, frightened by the sound of his own voice, the boy stopped in bewilderment and looked round. “Go on!” said Emily, as she poked in the teeth of the old machine with the scissors, then pulled and prodded again. He began “—boot—but—you——” here he died off again, made nervous by the sound of his voice in the stillness. Emily sucked a piece of cotton and pushed it through the needle. “Now go on,” she said, “—‘but you may’.” “But—you—may—shoot”:—he shouted away, reassured by the rumble of the machine: “Shoot—the—fox. I—I—It—is—at—the—rot——” “Root,” shrieked Emily, as she guided the stuff through the doddering jaws of the machine. “Root,” echoed the boy, and he went off with these crackers: “Root—of—the—tree.” “Next one!” cried Emily. “Put—the—ol——” began the boy. “What?” cried Emily. “Ole—on——” “Wait a bit!” cried Emily, and then the machine broke down. “Hang!” she ejaculated. “Hang!” shouted the child. She laughed, and leaned over to him: “‘Put the oil in the pan to boil, while I toil in the soil—Oh, Cyril, I never knew you were there! Go along now, Sam: David ’ll be at the back somewhere.” “He’s in the bottom garden,” said I, and the child ran out.