“I hear,” said I, “that little Jimmy Ayres up at Middlesham is dead.”

Bettesworth looked up seriously from his hoeing. “My wife was a sayin' so, when I went down 'ome to dinner.”

“Dropped down dead in the street, they say.”

“Oh, was it in the street, sir? I didn't hear. Now he got a lot o' money I 'xpect, if the rights was known. He bin a schemin' little feller ever since I knowd 'n. He come about 'ere first in one o' they travellin' vans.”

This seemed to explain the little knotted-up, dark-skinned, false-looking man, with his impenetrable eyes. “I always thought,” I said, “that he must be something of a gypsy.”

“Yes, that was his sort. Always a sort of a horse-coper. … Little devil he was to fight, too. He didn't care how big a man was. I've see 'n fight a man twice he's size. Now my brother-in-law — I see 'n fight him once. He was a big, strong feller, an' he overcome Jimmy at last; but Jimmy stuck to 'n. If 'twas a man o' fifteen stone it didn't matter to he. D'you remember that 'ere Tom Hawkins what used to live up here? He had the sandpits afore Legg took 'em. I see Jimmy one day jump up—he had to jump so's to reach his face. He jumped up in the chop-house, an' cut 'n over two or three chairs an' broke some cups an' things.