The Mayor of Casterbridge Chapter 36 Summary

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.