MY OLD, VILLAGE. 317 
in those days—that went behind that two-foot window, 
goodness! there was no end. Job used to chink them 
in a pint pot sometimes before the company, to give them 
an idea of his great hoards. He always tried to impress 
people with his wealth, and would talk of a fifty-pound 
contract as if'it was nothing to him. Jumbles are eter- 
nal, if nothing else is, I thought then there was not such 
another shop as Job’s in the universe. I have found 
since that there is a Job shop in every village, and in 
every street in every town—that is to say, a window for 
jumbles and rubbish ; and if you don’t know it, you may 
be quite sure your children do, and spend many a sly 
penny there. Be as rich as you may, and give them 
gilded sweetmeats at home, still they will slip round to 
the Job shop. 
It was a pretty cottage, well backed with trees and 
_ bushes, with a south-east mixture of sunlight and shade, | 
and little touches that cannot be suggested by writing. 
Job had not got the Semitic instinct of keeping. The 
art of acquisition he possessed to some extent, that was 
his right hand ; but somehow the half-crowns slipped 
away through his unstable left hand, and fortune was a 
greasy pole to him. His left hand was too cunning for 
him, it wanted to manage things too cleverly. If it had 
only had the Semitic grip, digging the nails into the flesh 
to hold tight each separate coin, he would have been 
village rich. The great secret is the keeping. Finding is 
by no means keeping. Job did not flourish in his old days; 
the people changed round about. Job is gone, and I 
think every one of that cottage is either dead or moved. 
Empty. 
The next cottage was the water-bailiff’s, who looked 
’ after the great pond or ‘broad.’ There were one or two 
old boats, and he used to leave the oars leaning against 
