The farmer asked Anthony by what conveyance he had come.  Anthony shyly, but not without evident self-approbation, related how, having come by the train, he got into conversation with the driver of a fly at a station, who advised him of a cart that would be passing near Wrexby.  For threepennyworth of beer, he had got a friendly introduction to the carman, who took him within two miles of the farm for one shilling, a distance of fifteen miles.  That was pretty good!

“Home pork, brother Tony,” said the farmer, approvingly.

“And home-made bread, too, brother William John,” said Anthony, becoming brisk.

“Ay, and the beer, such as it is.”  The farmer drank and sighed.

Anthony tried the beer, remarking, “That’s good beer; it don’t cost much.”

“It ain’t adulterated.  By what I read of your London beer, this stuff’s not so bad, if you bear in mind it’s pure.  Pure’s my motto.  ’Pure, though poor!’”

“Up there, you pay for rank poison,” said Anthony.  “So, what do I do?  I drink water and thank ’em, that’s wise.”

“Saves stomach and purse.”  The farmer put a little stress on ‘purse.’

“Yes, I calculate I save threepence a day in beer alone,” said Anthony.

“Three times seven’s twenty-one, ain’t it?”

Mr. Fleming said this, and let out his elbow in a small perplexity, as Anthony took him up:  “And fifty-two times twenty-one?”

“Well, that’s, that’s—­how much is that, Mas’ Gammon?” the farmer asked in a bellow.

Master Gammon was laboriously and steadily engaged in tightening himself with dumpling.  He relaxed his exertions sufficiently to take this new burden on his brain, and immediately cast it off.

“Ah never thinks when I feeds—­Ah was al’ays a bad hand at ’counts.  Gi’es it up.”

“Why, you’re like a horse that never was rode!  Try again, old man,” said the farmer.

“If I drags a cart,” Master Gammon replied, “that ain’t no reason why I should leap a gate.”

The farmer felt that he was worsted as regarded the illustration, and with a bit of the boy’s fear of the pedagogue, he fought Anthony off by still pressing the arithmetical problem upon Master Gammon; until the old man, goaded to exasperation, rolled out thunderingly,—­

“If I works fer ye, that ain’t no reason why I should think fer ye,” which caused him to be left in peace.

“Eh, Robert?” the farmer transferred the question; “Come! what is it?”

Robert begged a minute’s delay, while Anthony watched him with hawk eyes.

“I tell you what it is—­it’s pounds,” said Robert.

This tickled Anthony, who let him escape, crying:  “Capital!  Pounds it is in your pocket, sir, and you hit that neatly, I will say.  Let it be five.  You out with your five at interest, compound interest; soon comes another five; treat it the same:  in ten years—­eh? and then you get into figures; you swim in figures!”