"Wud the matter of a mile up the river be out o' the way?"
"Not at all."
"An' about rent?"
"Within reasonable limits, that would not matter."
"Then my advice to you, sir, es to see the Twins about et."
Mr. Fogo's mild face looked more puzzled than ever. He removed his spectacles, wiped and resumed them.
"For any reasonable object," he said, "I am ready to see any number of twins—much as I dislike babies—"
But here Caleb interrupted him by bursting into a roar of laughter which lasted for half a minute.
"Babbies! Well I—ho! ho!—'scuse me, sir—but aw dear, aw dear! Babbies! Bab—" Here he slapped his thigh and broke into another roar, at the end of which he grew fairly black in the face.
"Bless yer innocent heart, sir! They'm a matter o' six foot high, the both—and risin' forty. Dearlove's their name—and lives up the river 'long wi' their sister—Peter an' Paul an' Tamsin (which es short for Thom-a-si-na), an' I've heerd tell as the boys came nigh to bein' chrisn'd Sihon an' Og, on'y the old Vicar said he'd be blowed fust—very free wi' his langwidge was th' ould Vicar."