“I’ll just step round and see my nevy, while you and Peter are amusing each other,” he ses at last.  “I’ll ask ’im to come round to-morrow and then you can give ’im good advice.”

The nevy came round next evening.  Bright, cheerful young chap ’e was, and he agreed with everything they said.  When Peter said as ’ow all gals was deceivers, he said he’d known it for years, but they was born that way and couldn’t ’elp it; and when Ginger said that no man ought to marry afore he was fifty, he corrected ’im and made it fifty-five.

“I’m glad to ’ear you talk like that,” ses Ginger.

“So am I,” ses Peter.

“He’s got his ’ead screwed on right,” ses Sam, wot thought his sister ’ad made a mistake.

“I’m surprised when I look round at the wimmen men ’ave married,” ses the nevy; “wot they could ’ave seen in them I can’t think.  Me and my young lady often laugh about it.”

“Your wot?” ses Sam, pretending to be very surprised.

“My young lady,” ses the nevy.

Sam gives a cough.  “I didn’t know you’d got a young lady,” he ses.

“Well, I ’ave,” ses his nevy, “and we’re going to be married at Christmas.”

“But—­but you ain’t fifty-five,” ses Ginger.

“I’m twenty-one,” ses the nevy, “but my case is different.  There isn’t another young lady like mine in the world.  She’s different to all the others, and it ain’t likely I’m going to let ’er be snapped up by somebody else.  Fifty-five!  Why, ’ow I’m to wait till Christmas I don’t know.  She’s the prettiest and handsomest gal in the world; and she’s the cleverest one I ever met.  You ought to hear ’er laugh.  Like music it is.  You’d never forget it.”

“Twenty-one is young,” ses Ginger, shaking his ’ead. “’Ave you known ’er long?”

“Three months,” ses the nevy.  “She lives in the same street as I do.  ’Ow it is she ain’t been snapped up before, I can’t think, but she told me that she didn’t care for men till she saw me.”

“They all say that,” ses Ginger.

“If I’ve ’ad it said to me once, I’ve ’ad it said twenty times,” ses Peter, nodding.

“They do it to flatter,” ses old Sam, looking as if ’e knew all about it.  “You wait till you are my age, Joe; then you’ll know; why I should ha’ been married dozens o’ times if I ’adn’t been careful.”

“P’r’aps it was a bit on both sides,” ses Joe, looking at ’is uncle.  “P’r’aps they was careful too.  If you only saw my young lady, you wouldn’t talk like that.  She’s got the truthfullest eyes in the world.  Large grey eyes like a child’s, leastways sometimes they are grey and sometimes they are blue.  It seems to depend on the light somehow; I ’ave seen them when they was a brown-brownish-gold.  And she smiles with ’er eyes.”

“Hasn’t she got a mouth?” ses Ginger, wot was getting a bit tired of it.

“You’ve been crossed in love,” ses the nevy, staring at ’im.  “That’s wot’s the matter with you.  And looking at you, I don’t wonder at it.”