They were both too ugly.
The finale of this tale was received with a burst of incredulous laughter by those who heard it.
'Do you 'ear what Harlow says, Bob ?' Easton shouted to Crass.
'No.

What was it ?' ''E ses 'e once 'ad a chance to 'ave something but 'e wouldn't take it on because it was too ugly!' 'If it 'ad bin me, I should 'ave shut me bl--y eyes,' cried Sawkins.

'I wouldn't pass it for a trifle like that.' 'No,' said Crass amid laughter, 'and you can bet your life 'e didn't lose it neither, although 'e tries to make 'imself out to be so innocent.' 'I always though old Harlow was a bl--y liar,' remarked Bundy, 'but now we knows 'e is.' Although everyone pretended to disbelieve him, Harlow stuck to his version of the story.
'It's not their face you want, you know,' added Bundy as he helped himself to some more tea.
'I know it wasn't my old woman's face that I was after last night,' observed Crass; and then he proceeded amid roars of laughter to give a minutely detailed account of what had taken place between himself and his wife after they had retired for the night.
This story reminded the man on the pail of a very strange dream he had had a few weeks previously: 'I dreamt I was walkin' along the top of a 'igh cliff or some sich place, and all of a sudden the ground give way under me feet and I began to slip down and down and to save meself from going over I made a grab at a tuft of grass as was growin' just within reach of me 'and.

And then I thought that some feller was 'ittin me on the 'ead with a bl--y great stick, and tryin' to make me let go of the tuft of grass.

And then I woke up to find my old woman shouting out and punchin' me with 'er fists.