Retirement 
try to hurry him (as perhaps some gentleman, 
insisting, with gentlemanly superiority over one 
of the working classes, on having his summer- 
house thatched immediately), this man would 
begin the work in his own matchless way. So 
he secured the job to himself: no other could be 
employed to replace him. But then he went 
away from it; spent three or four days quietly 
at the public-house. Not that he “ boozed.” 
A couple of glasses in the day sufficed him. He 
lingered all day over these, however, disdaining 
to be hurried for anyone. 
Of course he had often worked at Street Farm. 
There, after he had done a day’s work, Mr. 
Smith’s mother was wont to treat him to gin-and- 
water. Remembering this many years later— 
the old chap was then ninety or so—Mr. Smith 
on one of his milk-rounds caught sight of him 
in the village street and beckoned to him. It was 
just outside “‘ The Prince of Wales,’’ whence 
two-pennyworth of gin was soon brought out. 
To this Mr. Smith added some new milk, tipped 
from the can in his cart. The old thatcher 
swigged it down and said, “ If my mother had 
give milk like that and lived till now, to this day 
I shouldn’t ha’ been weaned.” 
Incidents like this were not yet quite things 
of the past for Mr. Smith. Active business he 
had indeed given up; but he had strength for 
oy 
