"But what does it mean?"
"It means—well, it means you're just as sharp as th' other man, so 'e needn't try it on."
'—as per my favour of yesterday. And just below Stratford we picked up with a painter from America, but quite the gentleman, as you will see by his taking us on to a place called Tukesberry in a real moter car.'
[Let it be pleaded for Arthur Miles that his spelling had been outstripped of late by his experience. His sentences were as Tilda had constructed them in dictation.]
'Which at Tukesberry, happening to come across a gentleman friend of mine, as used to work for Gavel, and by name William, this American gentleman—'
"Sounds odd, don't it?" interposed Tilda.
"There's too much about gentlemen in it," the boy suggested.
"Well, but you're a gentleman. We shall find that out, right enough, when we get to 'Olmness. 'Ucks don't know that, and I'm tonin' 'im up to it. . . . You 'aven't put in what I told yer—about me tellin' Mr. Jessup as Bill was my brother-in-law an' 'is callin' back to us that 'e'd look after us 'ere."
"No."
"W'y not?"