“And I carries weight in ’em too, Mr. Jasper. Feel those!” producing two other large keys.
“Hand me Mr. Sapsea’s likewise. Surely this is the heaviest of the three.”
“You’ll find ’em much of a muchness, I expect,” says Durdles. “They all belong to monuments. They all open Durdles’s work. Durdles keeps the keys of his work mostly. Not that they’re much used.”
“By the bye,” it comes into Jasper’s mind to say, as he idly examines the keys, “I have been going to ask you, many a day, and have always forgotten. You know they sometimes call you Stony Durdles, don’t you?”
“Cloisterham knows me as Durdles, Mr. Jasper.”
“I am aware of that, of course. But the boys sometimes—”
“O! if you mind them young imps of boys—” Durdles gruffly interrupts.
“I don’t mind them any more than you do. But there was a discussion the other day among the Choir, whether Stony stood for Tony;” clinking one key against another.
(“Take care of the wards, Mr. Jasper.”)
“Or whether Stony stood for Stephen;” clinking with a change of keys.