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and turning round with about as much velocity as a man who is heavily ironed would turn, he had some slight notion that some one stood there whose face he had somewhere seen before.

"Dick," cried Obadiah again, "here!"

A new idea seemed to have entered Dick's brains, and that idea was that he knew Obadiah. He therefore took the pipe out of his mouth and approached; but when he saw Sylvester, he didn't know exactly whether he ought to take off his hat or not.

"Well, Dick, how goes it?" inquired Obadiah.

"Oh; doon knoo, sir, mooch aboot the seame."

"How are wages in this part of the country?" inquired Sylvester.

"Bad, sir," replied Dick. "Very bad, indeed."

"This is a friend of mine, Dick," said Obadiah: "and he seemed to be fructified when I told him that you hadn't ten shillings a week!"

"Ten, sir!—I've only foive! Hard loins that, sir!—foive shillin' aweek."

"Well, but what do you do with five shillings a week?"

"Why it arn't too mooch to spend, is it, sir?"

"No: but how do you manage to get rid of it?"

"Oh, I never have not the leasest trouble aboot that. I'll tell 'ee sir, hoo I manage. First, then—jist 'ee keep count—I pays a shillin' a week for me lodgin's. Well, that's one shillin' isn't it? Well, then, I has a stone o' flour a week: that's two-an'-threepence. How mooch is that together? Two-an'-threepence an' a shillin': that's three-an'-threepence. Well, twopence the bakin', an' penny the yeast—that's threepence—that's three-an'-sixpence. Three-an'-sixpence, well; then I have two poound of flet cheese, to eat wi' me bread, at threepence a poond, that's sixpence. Three-an'-six-pence an' sixpence moor is foor shillin'. Well! then I can't do without half-a-pint o' beer a day—that arn't too mooch is it?—well, a penny a half-pint, seven days in the week, that's sevenpence. Sevenpence an' foor shillin's, that's foor-an'-sevenpence. I arn't mooch of a scholard, boot that's soon counted. Foor-an'-sevenpence. Well, I moost have a shirt washed once a week, an' a han'kercher, an' a pair o' stockin's, that moost be mended—I never see sich devils to goo into holes—well, the washin' an' mendin' takes away the other fippence, an' that's hoo I meake ends meet."

"Well, but how do you manage when your clothes are worn out?"

"I gets a trifle more in the harvest time, sir: that's how I manages that."

"I see. But have men in this part of the country, in general, no more than five shillings a week?"

"Oh! 'ees, sir: soom have ten, and soom twelve! Boot I'm a bit of a cripple, you see, sir: that's where it is: I can't work noo as I used to could."

Sylvester gave him half-a-crown, which so astonished Dick that he burst into tears.

"Can you wonder at the fires after that?" cried Obadiah, as Dick, with a heart full of gratitude, left them.

"But this is a peculiar case," observed Sylvester. "You hear that the