"I—please, sir, I don't know any rhymes."
"Well, that's honest, anyway. Now I'll tell you why I asked." He turned and addressed Mr. Whitmore. "I'm Cornish born, sir; from Saltash, up across the river. Afore I went to sea there was a maid livin' next door to us that wanted to marry me. Well, when she found I wasn't to be had, she picked up with a fellow from the Victualling Yard and married he, and came down to Dock to live. Man's name was Babbage, and they hadn't been married six months afore he tumbled into a brine-vat and was drowned. 'That's one narrow escape to me,' I said. Next news I had was a letter telling me she'd a boy born, and please would I stand godfather? I didn't like to say no, out of respect to her family. So I wrote home from Gibraltar that I was agreeable, only it must be done by proxy and she mustn't make it no precedent. That must be ten years back; and what with one thing and another I never set eyes 'pon mother or child till yesterday when— having to run down to Dock to order Bill's grave—I thought 'twould be neighbourly to drop 'em a visit. I found the boy growed to be a terrible plain child, about the size of this youngster. I didn't like the boy at all. So I says to his mother, 'I s'pose he's clever?'—for dang it! thinks I, he must be clever to make up for being so plain-featured as all that. 'Benjy'—she'd a-called him Benjamin after me—'Benjy's the cleverest child for his age that ever you see,' she says. 'Why,' says she, 'he'll pitch-to and make up a rhyme 'pon anything!' 'Can he so?' I says, pulling a great crown-piece out of my pocket (not that I liked the cut of his jib, but the woman had been hinting about my being his godfather): 'Now, my lad, let's see if you're so gifted as your mother makes out. There's a sojer now passin' the window. Make a rhyme 'pon he, and you shall have the money.' What d'ye think that ghastly boy did? 'Aw, that's easy,' he says—"
'Sojer, sojer,
Diddy, diddy, dodger!'
'Sojer, sojer,
Diddy, diddy, dodger!'
"'Now hand me over the money,' he says. I could have slapped his ear."
Almost as he ended his simple story, the procession came to a halt: the strains of Tom Bowling changed into noisy—and, on the part of the ladies, very unladylike—expostulations. Mr. Jope started forward and leaned out of the window.
"I think," said the Rev. Mr. Whitmore, "we have arrived at the toll-gate."
"D'ye mean to say the sharks want to take toll on Bill?"
"Likely enough."
"On Bill? And him a-going to his long home? Here—hold hard!" Mr. Jope leapt out into the roadway and disappeared.