He seemed to consider about that, and not to agree with me.—‘Was you a looking for anything?’ he then asked, in a pointed manner.
‘I was wondering whether there happened to be any fragment of an old stage-coach here.’
‘Is that all?’
‘That’s all.’
‘No, there ain’t.’
It was now my turn to say ‘Oh!’ and I said it. Not another word did the dry and grizzled man say, but bent to his work again. In the coach-making days, the coach-painters had tried their brushes on a post beside him; and quite a Calendar of departed glories was to be read upon it, in blue and yellow and red and green, some inches thick. Presently he looked up again.
‘You seem to have a deal of time on your hands,’ was his querulous remark.
I admitted the fact.
‘I think it’s a pity you was not brought up to something,’ said he.
I said I thought so too.