J. COLE. 23

ought to be forty on ’em. Twenty picked
large for Mr. Moses, and twenty usuals for
Marts!’ — two of our best customers they was.
Well, Dick, he counts ’em, and soon misses
one. ‘Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, he sez, and
no more; ‘but ’ere’s a empty punnit,’ he sez.
I was standing near, feelin’ awful, and wished
[’d said I’d eat the plums afore Dick begun
to count ’em, but I didn’t, and after that
I couldn’t. ‘Joe!’ sez Dick, ‘I wants yer!
‘Ow come this empty punnit ’ere, along of the
others? there’s plums bin in it, I can see, ’cos
it’s not new. Speak up, youngster!’ I looked
at Dick’s face, Mrs. Wilson, and his eyes
seemed to go right into my throat, and draw
the truth out of me. ‘Speak up,’ he sez,
a-gettin’ cross; ‘if you’ve prigged ’em, say
so, and you'll get a good hidin’ from me, for
a-doin’ of it; but if you tells me a le, you'll
get such a hidin’ for that as ’l1 make you re-
member it all your life; so speak up, say you
did it, and take your hidin’ like a brick, and
if you didn’t prig ’em, say who did, ’cos you
must ’ay’ seen ’em go.’

“T couldn’t do nothin’, Mrs. Wilson, but