Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/252

242 very evening, and get to invite some of his comrades for the next Saturday. Brindle was one of the head miners; he had a bright good-natured face, and had given especial attention to certain performances with a magnet which Felix carried in his pocket.

Mr Chubb, who had also his illusions, smiled graciously as the enigmatic customer came up to the door-step.

"Well, sir, Sunday seems to be your day: I begin to look for you on a Sunday now."

"Yes, I'm a working man; Sunday is my holiday," said Felix, pausing at the door since the host seemed to expect this.

"Ah, sir, there's many ways of working. I look at it you're one of those as work with your brains. That's what I do myself."

"One may do a good deal of that and work with one's hands too."

"Ah, sir," said Mr Chubb, with a certain bitterness in his smile, "I've that sort of head that I've often wished I was stupider. I use things up, sir; I see into things a deal too quick. I eat my dinner, as you may say, at breakfast-time. That's why I hardly ever smoke a pipe. No sooner do I stick a pipe in my mouth than I puff and puff till it's gone before other folks are well lit; and then, where am