"
"Well, friends, I'll tell ye: for the trick may serve one of ye in the
days when you come to follow me, tho' the new relieving officer may
have learnt wisdom before then. You must know we've been considering
of this step for some while, but hearing that old Jacobs was going to
retire soon, I says to Maria, 'We'll bide till the new officer comes,
and if he's a green hand, we'll diddle 'en.' Day before yesterday,' as
you, was his first round at the work; so I goes up an' draws out my
ha'af-crown same as usual, an' walks straight off for the Four Lords
for a ha'af-crown's worth o' gin. Then back I goes, an' demands
an admission order for me an' the missus. 'Why, where's your
ha'af-crown?' says he. 'Gone in drink,' says I. 'Old man,' says he,
'you'm a scandal, an' the sooner you're put out o' the way o' drink,
the better for you an' your poor wife.' 'Right you are,' I says; an' I
got my order. But there, I'm wasting time; for to be sure you've most
of ye got kith and kin in the place where we'm going, and 'll be
wanting to send 'em a word by us.
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