CHAPTER XI.
BROTHER COPAS ON THE ANGLO-SAXON.
"You ought to write a play," said Mrs.Simeon.
Mr.Simeon looked up from his dinner and stared at his wife as though she had suddenly taken leave of her senses.

She sat holding a fork erect and close to her mouth, with a morsel of potato ready to be popped in as soon as she should finish devouring a paragraph of _The People_ newspaper, folded beside her plate.

In a general way Mrs.Simeon was not a reader; but on Mondays (washing-days) she regularly had the loan of a creased copy of _The People_ from a neighbour who, having but a couple of children, could afford to buy and peruse it on the day of issue.

There is much charity among the working poor.
"I--I beg your pardon, my dear ?" Mr.Simeon murmured, after gently admonishing his second son (Eustace, aged 11, named after the Master) for flipping bread pills across the table.

"I am afraid I did not catch--" "I see there's a man has made forty thousand pounds by writing one.
And he did it in three weeks, after beginning as a clerk in the stationery.