It was a matter of time, but at length the dialogue took another character.  The glasses of stimulant were renewed, and as Joseph grew expansive Scawthorne laid aside something of his professional reserve, without, however, losing the discretion which led him to subdue his voice and express himself in uncompromising phrases.  Their sitting lasted about an hour, and before taking leave of each other they arranged for a meeting at a different place in the course of a few days.

Joseph walked homewards with deliberation, in absent mood, his countenance alternating strangely between a look of mischievous jocoseness and irritable concern; occasionally he muttered to himself.  Just before reaching the Close he turned into a public-house; when he came forth the malicious smile was on his face, and he walked with the air of a man who bas business of moment before him.  He admitted himself to the house.

‘That you, Jo?’ cried Clem’s voice from upstairs.

‘Me, sure enough,’ was the reply, with a chuckle.  ’Come up sharp, then.’

Humming a tune, Joseph ascended to the sitting-room on the first floor, and threw himself on a seat.  His wife stood just in front of him, her sturdy arms a-kimbo; her look was fiercely expectant, answering in some degree to the smile with which he looked here and there.

‘Well, can’t you speak?’

’No hurry, Mrs. Clem; no hurry, my dear.  It’s all right.  The old man’s rolling in money.’

‘And what about your share?’

Joseph laughed obstreperously, his wife’s brow lowering the while.

‘Just tell me, can’t you?’ she cried.

’Of course I will.  The best joke you ever heard.  You had yours yesterday, Mrs. Clem; my turn comes to-day.  My share is—­just nothing at all.  Not a penny!  Not a cent!  Swallow that, old girl, and tell me how it tastes.’

‘You’re a liar!’ shouted the other, her face flushing scarlet, her eyes aflame with rage.

‘Never told a lie in my life,’ replied her husband, still laughing noisily.  But for that last glass of cordial on the way home he could scarcely have enjoyed so thoroughly the dramatic flavour of the situation.  Joseph was neither a bully nor a man of courage; the joke with which he was delighting himself was certainly a rich one, but it had its element of danger, and only by abandoning himself to riotous mirth could he overcome the nervousness with which Clem’s fury threatened to affect him.  She, coming forward in the attitude of an enraged fishwife, for a few moments made the room ring with foul abuse, that vituperative vernacular of the nether world, which has never yet been exhibited by typography, and presumably never will be.

‘Go it, Clem!’ cried her husband, pushing his chair a little back.  ’Go it, my angel!  When you’ve eased your mind a little, I’ll explain how it happens.’

She became silent, glaring at him with murderous eyes.  But just at that moment Mrs. Peckover put her head in at the door, inquiring ‘What’s up?’