72 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
of his friends, eminent for his drawings, and a good singer, was 
painting a sea subject at East Looe, on the rocks at low-tide. 
Hicks went to see him from Bodmin, and arrived at West Looe 
to be taken across the harbour in a boat. He was rather sur- 
prised to find a boatman waiting for him, who said, " I 've a been 
looking out for ee the last day or two ; I knowed you 'd come. 
He 's over here now. He 's been hollering and screeching. He 
zits at low-water down among the weed, a painting of something, 
and he calls out, ' Come into the garden, Maud ; ' a pretty garden 
he 's a got there ! ' I 'm here at the gate alone ; ' why there 's no 
gate within miles of un. You can take un." 
Hicks, as Clerk of the Board of Guardians, was taking down 
the minutes at a meeting of the Board, when a member of the 
Board was looking over his shoulder. This guardian said to him, 
"I beg to call your attention to a error, Mr. Hicks." "What 
is that 1 ?" said Hicks. "You've a left out the li in overplush." 
On another occasion the name Socrates had to be written, a 
quotation perhaps. A man looking over his shoulder said, 
"Zokrates! Who's he'? I never heerd of un." Hicks looked 
up rather surprised, when the man corrected himself by saying, 
"Except in the Scripture." 
Hicks met a man in Bodmin one day, and said to him, " You 
are not looking well. What is the matter'?" The man, who was 
a well-known character, said, " I 've a had an indifferent night, 
Mr. Hicks." " How is that V r said Hicks. " I sleep with father," 
he said. " And I reached forth my hand, all in the dead waste 
and the middle of the night, and couldn't feel nothing ; so I ses, 
ses I, Wherever is my poor dear old aged tender parent ? I got up 
and struck a light, all in the dead waste and middle of the night, 
and sarched the room and under the bed ; and ses I, Wherever is 
my poor dear old aged tender parent 1 ? I went down over the 
stairs, all in the dead waste and the middle of the night, and 
sarched the coal-hole ; and ses I, Wherever is my poor dear old 
aged tender parent 1 I went out into the garden, all in the dead 
waste and middle of the night ; and ses I, Wherever is my poor 
dear old aged tender parent *? I went down to the parsley-bed, all 
in the dead waste and middle of the night, and there I seed un ; 
he 'd a cut his throat with the reap-hook. I took un by the hair 
of his head, and I ses, ' You d d old blackguard, you 've a 
