table leg, re-seat a chair, replace a tile. Then he says, "There's
summat I must tell you----"

So he retails the gossip of the district, for it is against his
conscience, as he frankly avows, to conceal what he knows. And Heaven
knows, there is gossip enough in our quarter!--a complete network,
above and below, of quarrels, intrigues and deceptions, woven around
man, woman and the public in general. One says, "It _can't_ be true!"
and then thinks about something else.

And Crillon, in face of all this perversity, all this wrong-doing,
smiles! I like to see that happy smile of innocence on the lowly
worker's face. He is better than I, and he even understands life
better, with his unfailing good sense.

I say to him, "But are there not any bad customs and vices?
Alcoholism, for instance?"

"Yes," says Crillon, "as long as you don't exarrergate it. I don't
like exarrergations, and I find as much of it among the pestimists as
among the opticions. Drink, you say! It's chiefly that folks haven't
enough charitableness, mind you. They blame all these poor devils that
drink and they think themselves clever! And they're envious, too; if
they wasn't that, tell me, would they stand there in stony peterified
silence before the underhand goings-on of bigger folks? That's what it
is, at bottom of us. Let me tell you now. I'll say nothing against
Termite, though he's a poacher, and for the castle folks that's worse
than all, but if yon bandit of a Brisbille weren't the anarchist he is
and frightening everybody, I'd excuse him his dirty nose and even not
taking it out of a pint pot all the week through. It isn't a crime,