d,
disclaimed any idea of the kind, and added, "I don't know what you
mean."

"Don't you, my young master? All right! Tell Mr Loman I'll wait upon
him one fine day, see if I don't! Here's me, given up a whole blessed
day to serve him, and a pot of money out of my pocket, and here he goes!
not a penny for my pains! Chucks the thing back on my 'ands as cool as
a coocumber, all because he's changed his mind. I'll let him have a bit
of my mind, tell him, Mr Gentleman Schoolboy, see if I don't. I ain't
a-going to be robbed, no! not by all the blessed monkeys that ever wrote
on slates! _I'll_ wait upon him, see if I don't!"

Stephen, to whom the whole of this oration, which was garnished with
words that we can hardly set down in print, or degrade ourselves by
suggesting, was about as intelligible as if it had been Hebrew, thought
it better to make no reply, and sorrowed inwardly to find that such a
nice man as Mr Cripps should possess so short a temper. But the
landlord of the Cockchafer soon recovered from his temporary annoyance,
and even proceeded to apologise to Stephen for the warmth of his
language.

"You'll excuse me, young gentleman," said he, "but I'm a plain-spoken
man, and I was--there, I won't deny it--I was a bit put out about this
here rod first go off. You'll excuse me--of course I don't mean no
offence to you or Mister Loman neither, who's one of the nicest young
gentlemen I ever met. Of course if you'd a' paid seventy bob out of
your own pocket it would give _you_ a turn; leastways, if you was a
struggling, honest working man, like me."

"That's it," snivelled, old Mr Cripps, who had entered during this last
speech; "that's it, Benny, my boy, honest Partisans, that's what we is,
who knows what it are to be in want of a shillin' to buy a clo' or two
for the little childer."

What particular little "childer" Mr Cripps senior and his son were
specially interested in no one knew, for neither of them was blessed
with any. However, it was one of old Mr Cripps's heart-moving phrases,
and no one was rude enough to ask questions.

Stephen did not, on the present occasion, feel moved to respond to the
old man's lament, and Cripps junior, with more adroitness than filial
affection, hustled the old gentleman out of the door.

"Never mind him," said he to Stephen. "He's a silly old man, and always
pretends he's starvin'. If you believe me, he's a thousand pounds
stowed away somewheres. I on'y wish,"