and stands on the defensive.

'You never cried Widdy Warning before you begun to-night,' says
Durdles, unexpectedly reminded of, or imagining, an injury.

'Yer lie, I did,' says Deputy, in his only form of polite
contradiction.

'Own brother, sir,' observes Durdles, turning himself about again,
and as unexpectedly forgetting his offence as he had recalled or
conceived it; 'own brother to Peter the Wild Boy! But I gave him
an object in life.'

'At which he takes aim?' Mr. Jasper suggests.

'That's it, sir,' returns Durdles, quite satisfied; 'at which he
takes aim. I took him in hand and gave him an object. What was he
before? A destroyer. What work did he do? Nothing but
destruction. What did he earn by it? Short terms in Cloisterham
jail. Not a person, not a piece of property, not a winder, not a
horse, nor a dog, nor a cat, nor a bird, nor a fowl, nor a pig, but
what he stoned, for want of an enlightened object. I put that
enlightened object before him, and now he can turn his honest
halfpenny by the three penn'orth a week.'

'I wonder he has no competitors.'

'He has plenty, Mr. Jasper, but he stones 'em all away. Now, I
don't know what this scheme of mine comes to,' pursues Durdles,
considering about it with the same sodden gravity; 'I don't know