A MAN'S TIME
S. stopped to lean on the wall and tell me that he is now well past his eightieth birthday and has 'beat ole Jack by two month, just like ah said ah would, tha knows.' Jack, I was told, did not get beyond that anniversary, and died old. Eggs at 'thirty for a bob, no less' arc one of old S.'s fond memories, but he smacks his lips when he recalls "alf a sheep fer six shillin', sithee, an' a cock chicken ready for the oven at. one-ate-six.' For all his constitution 1 don't think S. ever managed half a sheep at a sitting, but no doubt he had help fiorn those who 'didn't last the innings,' as he puts it. S. himself was taken seriously ill a few years ago and gossip had him on the way to the grave, but he survived., and now daily plods along the road with a tail pf smoke trailing from his black pipe. 'Wouldn't 'ave it again,' be remarked as he took himself off and left me to my weeding. 'Not with what you got a'ead, but ah'd 'ave my time, eighty year back!' He had done his best to make me sigh for good old days I have never known.
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