"How can I guess? I don't know his London friends. I shan't even know her name."
"Well, you'll ha' left your memory where you left that string o' little 'orses if 'ee don't. Ever heard o' Upabbot?" He twisted round to wink advertisement of his humour to Ima. "Got any sort of a glimmering rec'lection of Abbey Royal?—why, Miss Espart!"
CHAPTER XII
PRELUDE TO THE BIG FIGHT
I
Percival said in a quiet voice, "Put me down. Put me down—I'm going to walk."
"So you're no hand at guessing, partner. Own up to that," was Mr. Hannaford's response. Then he cried, "Hi, what's up with 'ee? What be doing?" for Percival had stretched a sudden hand to the reins and the horse swerved sharply. "Whoa!" bellowed Mr. Hannaford, and dragged up with a wheel on the brink of a ditch. "Might ha' had us out!" he turned on Percival. "Bless my eighteen stun proper if 'ee mightn't!"
It was a wild face that fronted him, blotchy in red and white as it were freshly bruised. "Well, put me down!" Percival cried at him fiercely. "Put me down when I ask you!" and as he slowly drew the rug from his knees and put out a foot to the step he turned back on Mr. Hannaford and flamed "I suppose I can walk if I want to?" and dropped heavily to the road. His feet landed on the edge of the ditch. He blundered forward and came with hands and knees against the hedge. The stumble shook his hat from his head and he turned and went hatless past the tail of the cart and a few paces down the road.
Mr. Hannaford released with a rushing explosion the immense breath that he had been sustaining during the whole of these proceedings. He turned amazed eyes on Ima: "What's happened to him?"