“Spree? Me? My dear innocent youth, I have clean forgotten the very taste of beer. At this present moment, I stand before you a total abstainer of six weeks’ duration. And yet what I ask for is not beer, but bread—I’m as hungry as a wolf; I’ve hardly eaten anything for two days. What have you got in the house?”
“Nothin’.”
“What!”
“I don’t ’ave no time to cook. When I can find time, I go up to The Lucky Digger and get a good square feed. D’you expect me to do two men’s work and cook as well?”
Tresco undid the small “swag” which he carried, and before the astonished eyes of his apprentice he disclosed fully a hundred ounces of gold.
“Jee-rusalem! Blame me if you ain’t been diggin’!”
“That’s so, my son.”
“And the police are fair ratty because they thought you were hiding from the Law.”
“So I am, my son.”
“Garn!”