"There ain't no need to put me to my oath like that, old woman! I ain't a goin' for to deny it! You needn't go to put it to me as if I was the pris'ner at the bar, or a witness as wanted to speak up for him!--But you must allow this is a drivin' of it jest a _leetle_ too far! Here we be come up to Lon'on a thinkin' to better ourselves--not wantin' no great things--sich we don't look for to get--but jest thinkin' as how it wur time'--as th' parson is allus a tellin' his prishioners, to lay by a shillin' or two to keep us out o' th' workus, when 't come on to rain, an' let us die i' the open like, where a poor body can breathe!--that's all as we was after! an' here, sin' ever we come, fust one shillin' goes, an' then another shillin' goes as we brought with us, till we 'ain't got one, as I may almost say, left! An' there ain't no luck! I'stead o' gitting more we git less, an' that wi' harder work, as is a wearin' out me an' the b'ys; an'--" Here he was interrupted by a cry from the bed. It was the voice of little Moxy, the Sarpint o' the Prairies. "I ain't wore out, father! I'm good for another go." "I ain't neither, gov'nor. I got a lot more work in me!" "No, nor me," cried the third. "I likes London. I can stand on my head twice as long as Tommy Blake, an he's a year older 'n I am." "Hold your tongues, you rascals, an' go to sleep," growled the father, pretending to be angry with them. "What right have you to be awake at this time o' the night--an' i' Lon'on too? It's not like the country, as you very well know. I' the country you can do much as you like, but not in the town! There's police, an' them's there for boys to mind what they're about. You've no call to be awake when your father an' mother want to be by theirselves--a listenin' to what they've got to say to one another! Us two was man an' wife afore you was born!" "We wasn't a listenin', father. We was only hearin' 'cause we wasn't asleep. An' you didn't speak down as if it was secrets!" "Well, you know, b'ys, there's things as fathers and mothers can understand an' talk about, as no b'y's fit to see to the end on, an' so they better go to sleep, an' wait till their turn comes to be fathers an' mothers theirselves.--Go to sleep direc'ly, or I'll break every bone in your bodies!" "Yes, father, yes!" they answered together, nowise terrified by the awful threat--which was not a little weakened by the fact that they had heard it every day of their lives, and not yet known it carried into execution. But having been thus advised that his children were awake, the father, without the least hypocrisy, conscious or unconscious, changed his tone: in the presence of his children he preferred looking at the other side of the argument. After a few moments' silence he began again thus:--