"Hume," said the Mayor, with emphasis. The Mayor, while occasionally following the worse, saw the better way.
"Yes, 'Ume. Mr. Bannister wanted a 'orse. 'What's your figger, sir?' says I. He took no notice, but began looking at me with 'is eyes wide open, for all the world as if I'd never spoke. Then he says, 'I want a 'orse, broad-backed and fallen in the vale o' years.' Them was 'is very words."
"You don't say?" said the girl.
"I never knowed what he meant, no more than that pint-pot; but Mr. 'Ume laughed and says, 'Don't be a fool, Dale,' and told me that Mr. Bannister couldn't ride no more than a tailor—so he said—and wanted a steady, quiet 'orse. He got one from me—four-and-twenty years old, warranted not to gallop. I see 'im on her to day—and it's lucky she is quiet."
"Can't he ride?"
"No more than"—a fresh simile failed Mr. Maggs, and he concluded again—"that pint-pot. But Mr. 'Ume can. 'E's a nice set on a 'orse."
The Mayor had been meditating. He was a little jealous of Mr. Maggs' superior intimacy with the distinguished stranger, or perhaps it was merely that he was suddenly struck with a sense of remissness in his official duties.
"I think," he announced, "of callin' on him and welcomin' him to the town."
There was a chorus of approbation, broken only by a sneer from Alderman Johnstone.
"Ay, and take 'im a bottle of that cod-liver oil of yours at two-and-three. 'E can afford it."