- On Lucetta's way home, she sees Joshua Jopp.
- He stops her and asks if she'll vouch for his character to Farfrae so he can get a job.
- She says she doesn't know him at all – how could she vouch for his character?
- He says he used to live in Jersey when she did.
- This might be true, but she still didn't know him.
- She leaves. He's angry at her and goes home.
- Henchard is still crashing at Jopp's house.
- He doesn't want to be seen carrying the parcel of letters to Farfrae's house, so he asks Jopp to do it.
- Jopp agrees but doesn't go straight there.
- He stops for a few drinks at a pub in the seedy part of town.
- He opens the parcel and reads a few of the letters.
- He even passes some of them around so the other seedy characters in the pub can read them, too.
- The people in the pub start talking about doing a "skimmity-ride."
- A newcomer in the pub asks what a skimmity-ride is.
- The innkeeper explains that it's something people do to expose a woman's bad reputation, but she doesn't go into further details.
- Jopp seals up the letters and the package again and delivers it to Lucetta first thing in the morning.
- She burns them immediately, little suspecting that half the town already knows their contents.