Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/103

Rh got yourself to blame, as the sayin' is. But I'll say no more about it, as the sayin' is, an' as the fruit season's on, as the sayin' is, I'll take yer on with Brennan and the horses and the wagons, as the sayin' is, and—and you can sleep in the house if you like till I get a tenant, as the sayin' is."

Think of the last favour!

There are unwritten laws amongst men in English lanes as well as in the Bush. Bob had a woman to keep now, and Billy none, so there was no reason why he should leave his job or be displaced in favour of Billy, even if Billy had wished it. It was all otherwise.

But the brick-makers, becoming used to Bob's grammar and punctuation, chaffed him about Lizzie until the heavy labouring man, who made nasty remarks, tried them on Bob once. Bob knocked him down without a word, glance, or gesture of warning.

"Lie there, you ———! " he said through his teeth. "You ———! If it had not have been for your wife and daughter, I'd not have been living with another man's wife to-day!"

When Lizzie left Bob, which she did as if it was nothing in particular to do, she went to housekeep for a widower in Staines, where, I believe, she was some class, and respected by tradespeople, and looked up to by upper maids.

I heard some more of the story in Nineteen Three, coming along down by Italy, which looks like our own coast, on board the N.D.L. Gera. Billy was aboard—no matter how. I had had chats with him,