I don't say as they mayn't keep a body alive for a year or two, but, bless you, there's nothink in them; and the man'll be a skelinton long before he's dead an' buried; an' I shed jest like to know where's the good o' life on sich terms as them!" Thus Jones, the butcher--a man who never sold bad meat, never charged for an ounce more than he delivered, and when he sold to the poor, considered them.

In buying and selling he had a weakness for giving the fair play he demanded.

He had a little spare money somewhere, but he did not make a fortune out of hunger, retire early, and build churches.

A local preacher once asked him if he knew what was the plan of salvation.
He answered with the utmost innocence, cutting him off a great lump of leg of beef for a family he had just told him was starving, that he hadn't an idea, but no Christian could doubt it was all right.
The curate, then, pondering over what Mr.Jones had told him, had an idea; and now he and his wife were speedily of one mind as to attempting an arrangement for Juliet with Miss Drake.

What she would be able to pay would, they thought, ease them a little, while she would have the advantage of a better protection than a lodging with more humble people would afford her.