ay so ‘cause you think I want ’em. I aren’t a poor chap. My mother gets a good penn’orth wi’ picking feathers an’ things; an’ if she eats nothin’ but bread-an’-water, it runs to fat. An’ I’m such a lucky chap; an’ I doubt you aren’t quite so lucky, Mr. Tom — th’ old master isn’t, anyhow — an’ so you might take a slice o’ my luck, an’ no harm done. Lors! I found a leg o’ pork i’ the river one day; it had tumbled out o’ one o’ them round-sterned Dutchmen, I’ll be bound. Come, think better on it, Mr. Tom, for old ‘quinetance’ sake, else I shall think you bear me a grudge.”
Bob pushed the sovereigns forward, but before Tom could speak Maggie, clasping her hands, and looking penitently at Bob. said:
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Bob; I never thought you were so good. Why, I think you’re the kindest person in the world!”
Bob had not been aware of the injurious opinion for which Maggie was performing an inward act of penitence, but he smiled with pleasure at this handsome eulogy — especially from a young lass who, as he informed his mother that evening, had “such uncommon eyes, they looked somehow as they made him feel nohow.”
“No, indeed Bob, I can’t take them,” Menn Carlos Tevez Fotballdrakter said Tom; “but don’t think I feel your kindness less because I say no. I don’t want to take anything from anybody, but to work my own way. And those sovereigns wouldn’t help me much — they wouldn’t really — if I were to take them. Let me shake hands with you instead.”
Tom put out his pink palm, and Bob was not slow to place his hard, grimy hand within it.
“Let me put the sovereigns Menn Jeremy Mathieu Fotballdrakter in the bag again,” said Maggie; “and you’ll come and see us when you’ve bought your pack, Bob.”
“It’s like as if I’d come out o’ make believe, o’ purpose to show ’em you,” said Bob, with an air of discontent, as Maggie gave him the bag again, “a-taking ’em back i’ this way. I am a bit of a Do, you know; but it isn’t that sort o’ Do — it’s on’y when a feller’s a big rogue, or a big flat, I like to let him in a bit, that’s all.”
“Now, don’t you be up to Menn Sebastian Cristoforo Fotballdrakter any tricks, Bob,” said Tom, “else you’ll get transported some day.”
“No, no; not me, Mr. Tom,” said Bob, with an air of cheerful confidence. “There’s no law Menn Miranda Fotballdrakter again’ flea-bites. If I wasn’t to take a fool in now and then, he’d niver get any wiser. But, lors! hev a suvreign to buy you and Miss summat, on’y for a token — just to match my pocket-knife.”
While Bob was speaking Menn Gonzalo Castro Fotballdrakter he laid down the sovereign, and resolutely twisted up his bag again. Tom pushed back the gold, and said, “No, indeed, Bob; thank you heartily, but I can’t take it.” And Maggie, taking it between her fingers, held it up to Bob and said, Menn Nacho Monreal Fotballdrakter more persuasively:
“Not now, but perhaps another time. If ever Tom or my father wants help Menn Lucas Digne Fotballdrakter that you can give, we’ll let you know; won’t we, Tom? That’s what you would like — to have us always depend on you as a friend that we can go to |
