Hannikin, with little, if any, display of feeling, accepted bottled cider 
in substitution. 
"Norfolk, eh?" mused Mr. Hannikin, deciphering the text on the 
bottle. "That strikes a little mawkish on the palate, t' anybody what 
aren't been bred teetotal; but they say 'tis as good as a physic, if 
on'y a person can get over the taste. They pea blooms o' yourn look 
well, sir." 
They did, although, of course, it wasn't for me to say so; but I 
admitted that I -had seen worse. 
"R, and so 'ave I," responded Mr. Hannikin, warmly. "At 
Blowfield 'all itself. I was in the garden at the 'all only yesterday, 
and the General's pea blooms, they don't shape no sense in com- 
par'son with yourn. The General's Sweet peas, they look like so many 
beanflowers in compar'son with yourn. Well, yes, sir, thank you, sir, 
seein' as it be so mild and beneficial. The same glass'U do, sir." 
Mr. Hannikin, restraining an evident impulse to hold his nose, 
then benefited himself, in one determined gulp, to the extent of a 
standard pint. Having regained his breath, Mr. Hanikin then spoke 
again, with heightened color, but with a subdued intonation: — 
" There's somebody dead in this village, then? " said Mr. Hannikin. 
Was there? I hadn't heard of it. 
"They been soundin' the bell, at all events," Mr. Hannikin de- 
clared. " 'Tis a woman, simmingly," he mused; "for I took par- 
ticular notice o' the music, and they sounded three times two. 
There's a wonderful lot of illness about." Mr. Hannikin sighed. 
I filled his glass. 
Mr. Hannikin emptied it — ^not with enthusiasm, but without 
effort — and sighed again. "Them as be'ant HI, " he reflected, " be'ant 
well — not to say well. Some calls it the 'ay fever. Meself, I puts it 
down to all they 'ere germs and microbes. I be dreadful failed meself ; 
compared to what I used to be." 
I refused, in peremptory tones, to credit this statement, at the 
same time carelessly removing Mr. Hannikin's glass. Mr. Hannikin, 
who was a stout, pink man, in middle age, did not exhibit even the 
primary symptoms of breakdown. He followed the track of his dis- 
appearing glass with a Hstless eye, and having witnessed its final 
abandonment in the sink, transferred his gaze to the fluttering con- 
gress upon the pea-vines. 
"It don't do to judge o' a person's private interior from the out- 
side view," Mr. Hannikin then proclaimed. "I buried a old aunt last 
Michaelmas. A nice old lady, as used to rare chickun and tomater 
at Cookstead. She be one o' the plump kind, much after me own 
fashion. If anybody was to judge o' 'er private interior from a out- 
side view, they would put 'er down for a well-growed, 'ealthy woman. 
And 'ere we buries 'er at sixty-four! She be one o' the failin' sort, 
14 
