and coloured over brow and crown. 

 “Hoorray!” shouted a small lithe fellow called Wiry Ben, running forward and seizing the door. “We’ll hang up th’ door at fur end o’ th’ shop an’ write on’t ‘Seth Bede, the Methody, his work.’ Here, Jim, lend’s hould o’ th’ red pot.” 

 “Nonsense!” said Adam. “Let it alone, Ben Cranage. You’ll mayhap be making such a slip yourself some day; you’ll laugh o’ th’ other side o’ your mouth then.” 

 “Catch me at it, Adam. It’ll be a good while afore my head’s full o’ th’ Methodies,” said Ben. 

 “Nay, but it’s often full o’ drink, and that’s worse.” 

 Ben, however, had now got the “red pot” in his hand, and was about to begin writing his inscription, making, by way of preliminary, an imaginary S in the air. 

 “Let it alone, will you?” Adam called out, laying down his tools, striding up to Ben, and seizing his right shoulder. “Let it alone, or I’ll shake the soul out o’ your body.” 

 Ben shook in Adam’s iron grasp, but, like a plucky small man as he was, he didn’t mean to give in. With his left hand he snatched the brush from his powerless right, and made a movement as if he would perform the feat of writing with his left. In a moment Adam turned him round, seized his other shoulder, and, pushing him along, pinned him against the wall. But now Seth spoke. 

 “Let be, Addy, let be. Ben will be joking. Why, he’s i’ the right to laugh at me—I canna help laughing at myself.” 

 “I shan’t loose him till he promises to let the door alone,” said Adam. 

 “Come, Ben, lad,” said Seth, in a persuasive tone, “don’t let’s have a quarrel about it. You know Adam will have his way. You may’s well try to turn a waggon in a narrow lane. Say you’ll leave the door alone, and make an end on’t.” 

 “I binna frighted at Adam,” said Ben, “but I donna mind sayin’ as I’ll let ’t alone at your askin’, Seth.” 

 “Come, that’s wise of you, Ben,” said Adam, laughing and relaxing his grasp. 

 They all returned to their work now; but Wiry Ben, having had the worst in the bodily contest, was bent on retrieving that humiliation by a success in sarcasm. 

 “Which was ye thinkin’ on, Seth,” he began—“the pretty parson’s face 

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