 considered Samson and Solomon
rolled into one - too strong ever to be beaten or discomfited - too wise ever to
be outwitted. If you will notice, they have always foreseen events, though they
never tell one for one's warning before the events happen. My father was a man,
and I know the sex pretty well.«
    She had talked herself out of breath, and we should have been very glad to
fill up the necessary pause as chorus, but we did not exactly know what to say,
or which man had suggested this diatribe against the sex; so we only joined in
generally, with a grave shake of the head, and a soft murmur of »They are very
incomprehensible, certainly!«
    »Now, only think,« said she. »There, I have undergone the risk of having one
of my remaining teeth drawn (for one is terribly at the mercy of any
surgeon-dentist; and I, for one, always speak them fair till I have got my mouth
out of their clutches), and, after all, Mr. Hoggins is too much of a man to own
that he was robbed last night.«
    »Not robbed!« exclaimed the chorus.
    »Don't tell me!« Miss Pole exclaimed, angry that we could be for a moment
imposed upon. »I believe he was robbed, just as Betty told me, and he is ashamed
to own it; and, to be sure, it was very silly of him to be robbed just at his
own door; I dare say he feels that such a thing won't raise him in the eyes of
Cranford society, and is anxious to conceal it - but he need not have tried to
impose upon me, by saying I must have heard an exaggerated account of some petty
theft of a neck of mutton, which, it seems, was stolen out of the safe in his
yard last week; he had the impertinence to add, he believed that that was taken
by the cat. I have no doubt, if I could get at the bottom of it, it was that
Irishman dressed up in woman's clothes, who came spying about my house, with the
story about the starving children.«
    After we had duly condemned the want of candour which Mr. Hoggins had
evinced, and abused men in general, taking him for the representative and type,
we got round to the subject about which we had been talking when Miss Pole came
in: namely, how far, in the present disturbed state of the country, we could
venture to
