The Argosy — page 294: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The House of Halliwell. 273 find his things when he wanted them. Wouldn’t I like to have the shaking of that Jim!” ‘‘“My brother never does see anything but his books and pens,” said Hester. ‘‘ What are all these rolled up here ?” “Clean shirts which have got the buttons off,” responded Betty. “Tt have been master’s plan, I hear, when he have put on a shirt and found a button gone, to tug it off again and cram it, anyways, into the drawers, or toss it on the top, so that I b’lieve he have not got above a couple of shirts to wear. As if that Jim could not have folded them up after him ; and sewed the buttons on too, if he liked, the proud monkey! ‘Them are stockings, miss, and they have no fellows that I can: see, and there ain’t one in the whole stock but have nine or ten holes in it as big as half-a-crown.” “They will never mend!” exclaimed Hester, looking at stocking after stocking in dismay. “Not to much account,” answered Betty. ‘‘ Mr. Jim ought to be made to pay for new ones. He might have bought some darning- cotton and a needle, and caught up the holes, not have let ’em go on to this. I took a pair down yesterday, after master went out to dinner at five, and when he come home at half after ten I hadn’t got through the first. And oh, miss, you should have seen Jim’s roora in the cock-loft. He had been a cutting up of wood in it, and never cleared up the chips, and drops of taller was splashed on the boards, and a hole burnt in one corner of the sheet. Jd put Master Jim in a press-gang for two months and make him work, if I had my will.” “Where did this come from?” inguired Hester, espying a hand- some white satin pin-cushion on the dressing-table. ‘‘And what _ pretty scent bottles !” "They come from one or another of ’em,” replied Betty. ‘“ 1} daresay Jim knows which. It have been as good as a theatre-play to him.” “From one or another of what?” repeated Hester, not unde:z- standing. ‘From the young ladies what’s after master. The house is full of their presents. You just wait till to-morrow morning, miss, you’ll see something then. Why, miss, there ain’t one of that sixteen what was here to-night but is ready to rush into his arms, whether he’)l open them or not. All them niceties you saw on the table for tea was brought here by one or t’other: pretending, to master, that they had made the jams and things themselves, that he might get thinking what a useful wife they’d make him. The cups and saucers was lent by Mrs. Zink—she’s a deep one, she is—and them fringed cloths on the plates was give by Mrs. Dove. When they first got up these sewing-parties they held ’em at their own houses, by turns. And what made ’em propose to hold ’em at the vicarage? Why, because master should be present, for that’s all they care for, not for the Sewing or the poor; and they couldn’t for shame ask him to a COnnICloOoKS (C©) im