rather ought to tell the story o' that, sir!"

The interruption was sufficient to compel the Mayor to notice it.

"Well, I admit that the wheat turned out badly," he said. "But I was
taken in in buying it as much as the bakers who bought it o' me."

"And the poor folk who had to eat it whether or no," said the
inharmonious man outside the window.

Henchard's face darkened. There was temper under the thin bland
surface--the temper which, artificially intensified, had banished a wife
nearly a score of years before.

"You must make allowances for the accidents of a large business," he
said. "You must bear in mind that the weather just at the harvest of
that corn was worse than we have known it for years. However, I have
mended my arrangements on account o't. Since I have found my business
too large to be well looked after by myself alone, I have advertised for
a thorough good man as manager of the corn department. When I've got
him you will find these mistakes will no longer occur--matters will be
better looked into."

"But what are you going to do to repay us for the past?" inquired the
man who had before spoken, and who seemed to be a baker or miller. "Will
you replace the grown flour we've still got by sound grain?"

Henchard's face had become still more stern at these interruptions, and
he drank from his tumbler of water as if to calm himself or gain time.
Instead of vouchsafing a direct reply, he stiffly observed--