"You are speaking of Tom in there?"

"Yes."

"Well now," said the Tinker, blowing the dust off his job: which was
finished. "Ain't it enough to disgust a pig, if he could give his mind
to it?"

"If he could give his mind to it," returned the other, smiling, "the
probability is that he wouldn't be a pig."

"There you clench the nail," returned the Tinker. "Then what's to be
said for Tom?"

"Truly, very little."

"Truly nothing you mean, sir," said the Tinker, as he put away his tools.

"A better answer, and (I freely acknowledge) my meaning. I infer that he
was the cause of your disgust?"

"Why, look'ee here, sir," said the Tinker, rising to his feet, and wiping
his face on the corner of his black apron energetically; "I leave you to
judge!--I ask you!--Last night I has a job that needs to be done in the
night, and I works all night. Well, there's nothing in that. But this
morning I comes along this road here, looking for a sunny and soft spot
to sleep in, and I sees this desolation and ruination. I've lived myself
in desolation and ruination; I knows many a fellow-creetur that's forced
to live life long in desolation and ruination; and I sits me down and