looked, he replied somewhat ruefully, "No! that's what I never could
be," as though he felt that his appearance was disappointingly rustic.

Though a most industrious man, he had dreams of the enjoyment of
complete leisure; he told me that if ever he possessed as much as
fifty pounds he would never do another day's work as long as he lived.
I answered that when that ideal was reached he would postpone his
projected ease until he had made it a hundred, and so on ad infinitum;
and this proved a correct forecast, for in time, by the aid of a
well-managed allotment and regular wages, he saved a good bit of
money. When I sold my fruit crops by auction, on the trees, for the
buyers to pick, just before I gave up my land, as I should not be
present to harvest the late apples and cider fruit after Michaelmas,
he came forward with a bid of one hundred pounds for one of the
orchards, though it was sold eventually for a higher price.

He was not well versed in finance, however, for when the owner of his
cottage offered, at his request, to build a new pigsty if he would pay
a rent of 5 per cent, annually on the cost--a very fair
proposal--Jarge declined with scorn, being, I think, under the
impression that the owner was demanding the complete sum of five
pounds annually, and I found it impossible to disabuse his mind of the
idea. He felt aggrieved also by the fact that, having paid rent for
twenty-five or thirty years, he was no nearer ownership of his cottage
than when he began. His argument was that, as he had paid more than
the value of the cottage, it should be his property; the details of
interest on capital and all rates and repairs paid by the owner did
not appeal to him.

On the occasion of a concert at Malvern, which my wife and her sister