Ted and Joe found the usual Saturday customers already there, and presently shouts of laughter made the very rafters ring as he recounted his adventures with Margaret Heptonstall and her gander; his companion meanwhile sipping his beer with an air of suppressed importance.  By-and-by he, too, would add his quota to the evening’s entertainment, but he would wait till the culminating point of Ted’s story was reached, and the company was, so to speak, ripe for it.

“Me an’ Miss Hep. is meeterly thick now, I tell ye,” summed up Ted at the conclusion of his tale.  “Hoo thinks a dale o’ me, if hoo doesn’t think mich o’ menfolk in general.”

“Hoo gived Ted the gander’s leavin’s,” put in Joe, seizing his opportunity, and bringing out his joke with a great shout and a vigorous nudge to his nearest neighbour.  “Th’ owd lad needn’t be that set up—­hoo give him nought but the gander’s leavin’s, when all’s said an’ done.”

“Hoo didn’t give thee a drop as how ’tis,” retorted Ted.  “Poor Joe were stood i’ th’ doorway, ye know, an’ he sighed an’ licked his lips, th’ poor chap, but he didn’t get nought.  Miss Hep. didn’t fancy nobody but me.”

“Thou’ll be for coortin’ her next,” suggested somebody humorously.

“Nay, nay,” said an odd little short man with comically uplifted eyebrows. “‘T wouldn’t be no use coortin’ Margaret Heptonstall.  Eh, I remember when our missus reckoned hoo were deein’ an’ took a notion to mak’ up a match between Margaret an’ me—­”

The rest of his narrative was drowned in a roar of laughter.  Every one knew that story.

“Hoo wouldn’t ha’ noan o’ thee, would hoo Tom?” cried one.

“Thy missus couldn’t bear the notion of havin’ all they dumb things about as Margaret sets sich store by?” queried another.

“Nay, ’twas me as couldn’t bear the notion of her,” rejoined Tom stoutly.  “I’d be hard put-to to do wi’ onybody at arter our Betty.  Hoo’s wick an’ ‘earty, an’ I dunnot want nobry; but if I did have to pick a second missus, it shouldn’t be Margaret Hep.”

“Hoo’s reg’lar set in her ways, isn’t hoo?” put in old Jack.  “Ah, hoo’s reg’lar cut out for a single life, Marg’ret is.  I reckon nobody’ll want to coort her at this time o’ day, an’ if onybody did, hoo’d send him packin’.”

“I haven’t tried my hand yet, ye see,” remarked Ted, looking round for applause.  “If I was to get agate o’ coortin’ Margaret Hep., hoo’d be fain enough.”

There was general laughter at this statement, which nearly every one present hastened to deny.  All agreed that were Ted to urge his pretensions he would be very soon sent to the right-about.

“Well, then,” cried Ted when the uproar had somewhat subsided, “I’ll bet you a nine-gallon cask of owd Jack’s best to a five-shillin’ bit that Margaret Hep. an’ me ’ull be shouted before the month’s out.”

The din at this point reached such a height that Mrs. Jack hastened in from the back premises to inquire what was to-do, and Ted himself was obliged to hammer on the table with his knuckles before he could make himself heard.