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He had to work very hard all day to get them enough to eat, and was often tired and cross, and abused everything and everybody, so that people called him 'Father Grumbler. By-and-by he grew weary of always working, and on Sundays he lay a long while in bed, instead of going to church.

And flack! flick! like lightening a white switch sprang out of the bag, and gave such hearty blows to the innkeeper and his wife, and to Father Grumbler into the bargain, that they all jumped as high as feathers when a mattress is shaken. 'Stop! stop! make it stop, and you shall have back your cock and basket, cried the man and his wife.

As Captain Murchison remarked to the owners when he saw that Joe was this voyage to form one of his crew: "The old fellow would be worth his pay if he never put his hand to work. He keeps a crew in good humour with his yarns and stories; and if there is a grumbler on board he always manages to turn the laugh against him, and to show him to the others in his true light as a skulker and a sneak.

Two days more would have made it fifty or better; and no man, more than I, would be content with one half of what he might and ought to have. 'I believe we are full, old Grumbler, said the tar; 'others are more active than you; but here, we are just alongside of the Betsy. Ship, ahoy! Throw us a rope! Are you all asleep?

"Yea indeed, and I trow it," quoth the Saxon, even in that day a grumbler; "but I take it, the main difference between thee and me is, that I can say what mislikes me out like a man; and it would fare ill with thy limbs or thy life if thou wert as frank in the grim land of thy heretogh."

'Have another glass of wine? suggested the innkeeper, when they had finished admiring the beauty of the cock, for they pretended not to have seen the gold or the diamonds. And Father Grumbler, nothing loth, drank one glass after another, till his head fell forward on the table, and once more he was sound asleep.

'Come, take a glass to warm you this cold day, said the woman, who was anxious to keep him in a good temper, and as this was an invitation Father Grumbler never refused, he tossed it off and left the house. He took the road that led to the Holy Man's cave, and made such haste that it was not long before he reached it. 'Who is there? said a voice in answer to his knock.

Father Grumbler was always accustomed to think of himself as so unlucky that he did not know whether the Holy Man was not playing a trick upon him; but he took the basket without being polite enough to say either 'Thank you, or 'Good-morning, and went away.

The treatment meted out to the grumbler and mischief-maker usually presents more of the elements of comedy than anything else, and it is his own fault if he does not get off lightly. But if he cuts up rough, tries to strike or kick his drivers or tormentors, or if he goes in for a course of sulks, and flops himself down, refusing to be driven, then the comic element disappears from the scene.

You haven't hit me yet, and you haven't tried to do so." "Yes, sir, I have." "Don't contradict me. Now we will try again." They commenced once more, and immediately Dandy, in order to gratify his master, gave him a pretty smart blow upon the end of his nose. He hoped this would satisfy the grumbler, and bring the sport to a happy termination.