“Ye be too much for me, I doubt,” returned the host of the “Carved Lion.” “Ye’d mek me bleeve black was white.”
“You are obstinate, my friend, and, I’m afraid, a little prejudiced,” observed the attorney; “but after all it is but natural.”
“If I stop much longer you’ll persuade me that my eyes ain’t no good to me, and that I’ve got colour-blindness or something o’ that sort. I never seed such a chap in all my born days as what ye are,” said Brickett, rising from his seat.
“Don’t go, my friend,” said Slapperton, good-humouredly. “We’ll make a lawyer of you in time. To succeed in the legal profession a man requires either a great deal of talent, or else a great deal of impudence.”
“One o’ them two you’ve got a pretty good stock of—I won’t say which it be,” cried Brickett.
This last observation was greeted with uproarious laughter, and the host of the “Carved Lion” was applauded to the echo.
“Excellent—very good, indeed!” cried Slapperton. “I should not have supposed you’d have had it in you, but you are sharpened up to-day. You see what it is to be in my company.”
“Well, I must be for going,” said Brickett.
“Don’t ’e be in such a might hurry,” observed a farmer. “I shall be for starting myself in less than half an hour, and am going your way—so sit down and make your life as happy as you can. We are all on us friends here, and my company be better nor none, I s’pose?”
“All right,” cried the landlord of the “Carved Lion.” “When you be ready I’m at your service.”