"Let 'em alone!" said Mr. Wriford menacingly. "What d'you want with 'em?"
Mr. Puddlebox played the game learnt of experience. He concealed his agitation. He said with his jolly smile: "Why, mean that I will not be beat at anything by you or by any man. I will challenge you or any man at any game and will be beat by none. You've been in and got 'em, boy; now, curse me, I will equal you and beat you for that I will go in and put them back. Play fair, boy. Hand over."
"Well, there you are," said Mr. Wriford, disarmed and much tickled.
"Out you go then, boy," said Mr. Puddlebox, gathering up the trinkets. "Out into the road. You had none of me to interfere with you, and I must have none of you while I go my own way to this."
Mr. Puddlebox took Mr. Wriford to the gate of the grounds, then went back again in much trembling. An open window informed him of Mr. Wriford's place of entry. He leant through to a sofa that stood handy, there deposited the trinkets, and very softly shut the window down. When he rejoined Mr. Wriford, fear's perspiration was streaming from him. "I've had a squeak of it," said Mr. Puddlebox with simulated cheeriness. "Let's out of this, and I'll tell you."
He walked Mr. Wriford long, quickly and far. While he walked he fought again the battle that had been swift victory when he cast his bottle from him; and in future days fought it again and met new tortures in each fight.
"Aren't you going to get any whisky?" asked Mr. Wriford when on a day, pockets lined with harvest money, he noticed Mr. Puddlebox's abstinence.
"Whisky! Hell take such stinking stuff," cried Mr. Puddlebox and sucked in his cheeks—and groaned; then put a hand in his tail-pocket and felt a hard lump rolled in a cloth that lay where the whisky used to lie and said to himself: "Two bottles—two bottles."
It was Mr. Puddlebox's promise to himself, and his lustiest weapon in his battles with his desire, that, on some day that must come somehow, the day when he should be relieved of his charge of Mr. Wriford, he would buy himself two bottles of whisky and sit himself down and drink them. Into the hard lump rolled in the cloth, and composing it, there went daily when his earnings permitted it two coppers. When that sum reached eighty-four—two at three-and-six apiece—his two bottles would be ready for the mere asking.
Wherefore "Two bottles! Two bottles!" Mr. Puddlebox would assure himself when most fiercely his cravings assailed him, and against the pangs of his denial would combine luxurious thoughts of when they should thus be slaked and fears of what might happen to his loony if he now gave way to them.