And Betsy, on the score of ancient friendship and kind remembrance of his likings, put it to him in a gentle way whether his knowledge of what Sally Mock had been, and the calumnies she might have spoken of his beer (when herself, in the work-house, deprived of it), might not have induced him to take a little more than usual in going down so deep for her.

But he answered, "No; it was nothing of the sort.

Deep he had gone, to the tiptoe of his fling; not from any feeling of a wish to keep her down, but just because the parish paid, and the parish would have measurement.

And when that was on, he never brought down more than the quart tin from the public; and never had none down afterward.

Otherwise the ground was so ticklish, that a man, working too free, might stay down there.