Nicky-Nan.

"Oh!" said 'Bert, "that isn' because of the War. That's to say
Good-bye, because he's turnin' out this week."

"For goodness, children, eat up your meal, an' stop talkin'!"
Mrs Penhaligon returned from the hearth to the table and set down a
dish of eggs and sizzling bacon. "Wherever you pick up such notions!
. . . You must excuse their manners, Mr Nanjivell."

But Nicky-Nan was staring at young 'Bert from under fiercely bent
eyebrows.

"Who told you that I was turnin' out this week?" he demanded.

"I heard Mr Pamphlett say it, day before yesterday. He was round
with Squinny Gilbert--"

"Fie now, your manners get worse and worse!" his mother reproved him.
"Who be you, to talk of the builder-man without callin' him
'Mister'?"

"Well then, he was round with Mister Squinny Gilbert, lookin' over
the back o' the house. I heard him say as you was done for, and
would have to clear inside the next two or three days--"

"He did--did he?" Nicky-Nan was arising in ungovernable rage; but
Mrs Penhaligon coaxed him to sit down.

"There now!" she said soothingly. "Take un' eat, Mr Nanjivell!