"But p'r'aps it might get you into trouble?"
"You 're welcome."
"He do give me a lot of worry; and it don't make things easier Damper's
threatenin' to knock his 'ead off if ever he catches the man darkenin'
our door. Never been to school, aven't you? I 'd like to tell 'im, and
that, if there's a law, it ought to be the same for all. But all my
children are 'ealthy, and that's one consolation."
"'Ealth's the first thing in life," agreed Tilda. "So they've all
cleared out?--the shows, I mean."
"Every one--exceptin' the Theayter."
"Mortimer's?" Tilda limped to the open door. "But I don't see him,
neither."
"Mortimer's is up the spout. First of all, there was trouble with the
lodgings; and on top of that, last Monday, Mr. Hucks put the bailiffs
in. This mornin' he sent half a dozen men, and they took the show to
pieces and carried it off to Hucks's yard, where I hear he means to sell
it by public auction."
"Who's Mr. Hucks?"
"He's the man that farms the Plain here--farms it _out_, I mean," Mrs.
Damper explained. "He leases the ground from the Corporation and lets
it out for what he can make, and that's a pretty penny. Terrible
close-fisted man is Mr.
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