“And says I to Mills,” continued Mr. Craig, “’Will you try to make me believe as furriners like them can do us half th’ harm them ministers do with their bad government?  If King George ’ud turn ’em all away and govern by himself, he’d see everything righted.  He might take on Billy Pitt again if he liked; but I don’t see myself what we want wi’ anybody besides King and Parliament.  It’s that nest o’ ministers does the mischief, I tell you.’”

“Ah, it’s fine talking,” observed Mrs. Poyser, who was now seated near her husband, with Totty on her lap—­“it’s fine talking.  It’s hard work to tell which is Old Harry when everybody’s got boots on.”

“As for this peace,” said Mr. Poyser, turning his head on one side in a dubitative manner and giving a precautionary puff to his pipe between each sentence, “I don’t know.  Th’ war’s a fine thing for the country, an’ how’ll you keep up prices wi’out it?  An’ them French are a wicked sort o’ folks, by what I can make out.  What can you do better nor fight ’em?”

“Ye’re partly right there, Poyser,” said Mr. Craig, “but I’m not again’ the peace—­to make a holiday for a bit.  We can break it when we like, an’ I’m in no fear o’ Bony, for all they talk so much o’ his cliverness.  That’s what I says to Mills this morning.  Lor’ bless you, he sees no more through Bony!...why, I put him up to more in three minutes than he gets from’s paper all the year round.  Says I, ’Am I a gardener as knows his business, or arn’t I, Mills?  Answer me that.’  ‘To be sure y’ are, Craig,’ says he—­he’s not a bad fellow, Mills isn’t, for a butler, but weak i’ the head.  ‘Well,’ says I, ‘you talk o’ Bony’s cliverness; would it be any use my being a first-rate gardener if I’d got nought but a quagmire to work on?’ ‘No,’ says he.  ‘Well,’ I says, ’that’s just what it is wi’ Bony.  I’ll not deny but he may be a bit cliver—­he’s no Frenchman born, as I understand—­but what’s he got at’s back but mounseers?’”

Mr. Craig paused a moment with an emphatic stare after this triumphant specimen of Socratic argument, and then added, thumping the table rather fiercely, “Why, it’s a sure thing—­and there’s them ’ull bear witness to’t—­as i’ one regiment where there was one man a-missing, they put the regimentals on a big monkey, and they fit him as the shell fits the walnut, and you couldn’t tell the monkey from the mounseers!”

“Ah!  Think o’ that, now!” said Mr. Poyser, impressed at once with the political bearings of the fact and with its striking interest as an anecdote in natural history.

“Come, Craig,” said Adam, “that’s a little too strong.  You don’t believe that.  It’s all nonsense about the French being such poor sticks.  Mr. Irwine’s seen ’em in their own country, and he says they’ve plenty o’ fine fellows among ’em.  And as for knowledge, and contrivances, and manufactures, there’s a many things as we’re a fine sight behind ’em in.  It’s poor foolishness to run down your enemies.  Why, Nelson and the rest of ’em ‘ud have no merit i’ beating ’em, if they were such offal as folks pretend.”