"The point is, Am I, or am I not, an objic of derision?"
"If you don't drive on this moment, I'll step around and punch your head."
"Tha's all right. Tha's right as ninepence. It's not much I arsk— only to have things clear." He drove on.
We halted at yet another public-house—I remember its name, the Half a Face—and must have journeyed a mile or so beyond it when the end came. We had locked wheels in the clumsiest fashion with a hay-wagon; and the wagoner, who had quartered to give us room and to spare, was pardonably wroth. Mr. Jope descended, pacified him, and stepped around to the back of the coach, the hinder axle of which, a moment later, I felt gently lifted beneath me and slewed clear of the obstruction.
"My word, mister, but you've a tidy strength!" exclaimed the wagoner.
"No more than you, my son—if so much: 'tain't the strength, but the application. That's 'Nelson's touch.' Ever heard of it?"
"I've heard of him, I should hope. Look y' here, mister, did you ever know him? Honour bright, now!"
"Friends, my son: dear, dear friends! And the gentleman 'pon the box, there, drunk some of the very rum he was brought home in. He's never recovered it."
"And to think of my meeting you!"
"Ay, 'tis a small world," agreed Mr. Jope cheerfully: "like a cook's galley, small and cosy and no time to chat in it. Now then, my slumb'ring ogre!"