"An' a fresh spot o' bacon-fat 'pon your weskit, that I've kept the
moths from since goodness knows when!"

Old Jan looked down over his waistcoat. It was of good
"West-of-England broadcloth, and he had worn it on the day when he
married the woman at his side.

"I'm thinking--" he began.

"Hey?"

"I'm thinking I'll find it hard to make friends in--in there. 'Tis
such a pity, to my thinking, that by reggilations we'll be parted so
soon as we get inside. You've a-got so used to my little ways
an' corners, an' we've a-got so many little secrets together an'
old-fash'ned odds an' ends o' knowledge, that you can take my meaning
almost afore I start to speak. An' that's a great comfort to a man o'
my age. It'll be terrible hard, when I wants to talk, to begin at the
beginning every time. There's that old yarn o' mine about Hambly's cow
an' the lawn-mowing machine--I doubt that anybody 'll enjoy it so
much as you always do; an' I've so got out o' the way o' telling the
beginning--which bain't extra funny, though needful to a stranger's
understanding the whole joke--that I 'most forgets how it goes."

"We'll see one another now an' then, they tell me. The sexes meet for
Chris'mas-trees an' such-like."

"I'm jealous that 'twon't be the same. You can't hold your triflin'
confabs with a great Chris'mas-tree blazin' away in your face as