Poor Penny was ready to cry.

But now Mr. Freely re-entered the shop without the constable.  During his walk of a few yards he had had time and calmness enough to widen his view of consequences, and he saw that to get Jacob taken to the workhouse or to the lock-up house as an offensive stranger might have awkward effects if his family took the trouble of inquiring after him.  He must resign himself to more patient measures.

“On second thoughts,” he said, beckoning to Mr. Palfrey and whispering to him while Jacob’s back was turned, “he’s a poor half-witted fellow.  Perhaps his friends will come after him.  I don’t mind giving him something to eat, and letting him lie down for the night.  He’s got it into his head that he knows me—­they do get these fancies, idiots do.  He’ll perhaps go away again in an hour or two, and make no more ado.  I’m a kind-hearted man myself—­I shouldn’t like to have the poor fellow ill-used.”

“Why, he’ll eat a sovereign’s worth in no time,” said Mr. Palfrey, thinking Mr. Freely a little too magnificent in his generosity.

“Eh, Zavy, come back?” exclaimed Jacob, giving his dear brother another hug, which crushed Mr. Freely’s features inconveniently against the stale of the pitchfork.

“Aye, aye,” said Mr. Freely, smiling, with every capability of murder in his mind, except the courage to commit it.  He wished the Bath buns might by chance have arsenic in them.

“Mother’s zinnies?” said Jacob, pointing to a glass jar of yellow lozenges that stood in the window.  “Zive ’em me.”

David dared not do otherwise than reach down the glass jar and give Jacob a handful.  He received them in his smock-frock, which he held out for more.

“They’ll keep him quiet a bit, at any rate,” thought David, and emptied the jar.  Jacob grinned and mowed with delight.

“You’re very good to this stranger, Mr. Freely,” said Letitia; and then spitefully, as David joined the party at the parlour-door, “I think you could hardly treat him better, if he was really your brother.”

“I’ve always thought it a duty to be good to idiots,” said Mr. Freely, striving after the most moral view of the subject.  “We might have been idiots ourselves—­everybody might have been born idiots, instead of having their right senses.”

“I don’t know where there’d ha’ been victual for us all then,” observed Mrs. Palfrey, regarding the matter in a housewifely light.

“But let us sit down again and finish our tea,” said Mr. Freely.  “Let us leave the poor creature to himself.”

They walked into the parlour again; but Jacob, not apparently appreciating the kindness of leaving him to himself, immediately followed his brother, and seated himself, pitchfork grounded, at the table.

“Well,” said Miss Letitia, rising, “I don’t know whether you mean to stay, mother; but I shall go home.”

“Oh, me too,” said Penny, frightened to death at Jacob, who had begun to nod and grin at her.