“Did you hurt the gentleman, Sir?” said Mr. Manley to Wolf, in the grave, cautious voice of a drunkard anxious to prove his sobriety.

“You drove the gentleman into fold, seems so!” echoed Mr. Beard.

In thus approaching Wolf it was inevitable that the two worthies should jostle the portly frame of Mr. Torp, who, leaning against the back of a chair, with an empty pewter beer-mug trailing by its handle from one of his plump fingers, had fallen into an interlude of peaceful coma.

“Who the bloody hell be ’ee barging into?” murmured Mr. Torp, aroused thus suddenly to normal consciousness.

“Paupers’ moniments!” jeered the farmer. “Nought but paupers’ moniments in’s yard; and ’a can still talk grand and mighty!”