Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/37

 smiling his twelve-inch smile, and his master putting on a severe or mocking expression and persisting in catching his eye.

Mr. Leonard said, " Well, Billy!—as the sayin' is."

And Billy said, " Good evenin', Mr. Leonard."

And Mr. Leonard says, " Good evenin', Billy (as the sayin' is)," and something about the morning's work, perhaps. " Don't forget them there, etc., in the morning, Billy." And Billy says, " Alright, sir, " and turns towards the village.

And Billy's corduroys flicker away in the dusk. He passes and is passed by a tall, oldish man (oldish is the word) with a bend—or—stay—by an elderly man—an elderly labouring man, who would be tall but for the bend. An elderly labouring man with a squarish face—oblong, but features square, rather. Gladstonian face without the politics, and a dirty-looking grey frill beard, like the hair of a white Scotch terrier that's been in the ashes and wants washing. We don't notice that they nod or speak to each other in passing, but something makes us feel that it's just the same as if they did. The old man is bent from the hips up, and carries his arms with his hands clasped behind—on a lower rear gable as it were—or the end of the rain slope. He wears no coat, of course, but generally a calico-backed waistcoat hanging open in front, and a red speckled handkerchief round his neck, knotted under his frill. One fancies that his running (on some improbable village occasion) would a question of his legs keeping up, perforce, indignantly, and with breathless difficulty, with the