PAST AND PRESENT TIMES 331 



about would you mind letting him come in just to have 

 a sniff round ? He expects it might be a pig you've got. 

 In my time we didn't think a pig's smell hurt nobody. 

 They've got their own smell, pigs have, same as dogs 

 and everything else. But we've got very partickler about 

 smells now. 



" And we didn't drink no tea then. Eight shillings a 

 pound, or may be seven-and-six dear, dear, how was 

 we to buy it! We had beer for breakfast and it did 

 us good. It were better than all these nasty cocoa 

 stuffs we drink now. We didn't buy it at the public- 

 house we brewed it ourselves. And we had a brick 

 oven then, and could put a pie in, and a loaf, and 

 whatever we wanted, and it were proper vittals. We 

 baked barley bread, and black bread, and all sorts of 

 bread, and it did us good and made us strong. These 

 iron ranges and stoves we have now what's the good 

 o' they ? You can't bake bread in 'em. And the wheat 

 bread you gits from the shop, what's it good for? 

 'Tisn't proper vittals it fills 'e with wind. No, I say, 

 I'm not going to git the fruit let the birds have it! 

 Just look at the greedy things them starlings ! I've 

 shouted, and thrown sticks and all sorts of things, and 

 shaken a cloth at 'em, and it's like calling the fowls to 

 feed. The more noise I make the more they come. 

 What I say is, If I can't have the fruit I wish the 

 blackbirds 'ud git it. People say to me, ' Oh, don't talk 

 to me about they blackbirds they be the worst of all for 

 fruit.' But I never minded that because well, I'll tell 

 'e. I mind when I were a little thing at Old Alresford, 



