'O, come, sir, you ain't going to fob me of with this? Why, I seen
fire at your side!' he cried.
It would never do to give him more; I felt I should become the
fable of Kirkby-Lonsdale if I did; and I looked him in the face,
sternly but still smiling, and addressed him with a voice of
uncompromising firmness.
'If you do not like it, give it back,' said I.
He pocketed the guineas with the quickness of a conjurer, and, like
a base-born cockney as he was, fell instantly to casting dirt.
''Ave your own way of it, Mr. Ramornie--leastways Mr. St. Eaves, or
whatever your blessed name may be. Look 'ere'--turning for
sympathy to the stable-boys--'this is a blessed business. Blessed
'ard, I calls it. 'Ere I takes up a blessed son of a pop-gun what
calls hisself anything you care to mention, and turns out to be a
blessed mounseer at the end of it! 'Ere 'ave I been drivin' of him
up and down all day, a-carrying off of gals, a-shootin' of
pistyils, and a-drinkin' of sherry and hale; and wot does he up and
give me but a blank, blank, blanketing blank!'
The fellow's language had become too powerful for reproduction, and
I passed it by.
Meanwhile I observed Rowley fretting visibly at the bit; another
moment, and he would have added a last touch of the ridiculous to
our arrival by coming to his hands with the postillion.
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