LOW PRICES AXD LONG FACES. 127 



Bricklayer, the Carpenter, the Workmen, and last not 

 least the gaping Neighbour each has his opinion, 

 and gives it freely enough. The result is generally a 

 mongrel compromise between them all. No one voice 

 no one plan is predominant, and by the time the 

 whole outlay is expended, the job is half a job, and the 

 ship is spoilt for a ha'p'orth of tar and an ounce of 

 oakum. The extreme of cold, as well as the extreme 

 of heat, will leave a blister on the fingers. 



Five months had winged away and the glorious 

 spring of that eighteen hundred and thirty odd, afore 

 dated with such edifying minuteness, and now hanging 

 up like a cobweb in some neglected passage of this 

 Chronicle had fallen into something more than sum- 

 mer since the Wetlandshire Mercury had typified to 

 the world at large that a certain farm was to be let, 

 at a certain time. ' Fourteen' applications by the first 

 post, duly forwarded by the prompt Firm of Penn and 

 Debbitt (and how many more by the next and the 

 next what boots it to particularize ?) had been for- 

 warded in vain. For a blight had fallen the strangest 

 of blights ! the blight of Plenty, over the sons of the 

 soil, and before September had crisped the morning 

 air, and the partridge-chick had found cool midday 



