‘It don’t go at all, master,’ said he to me. ‘It’s stopped.’
‘That’s bad,’ said I.
‘Bad?’ he repeated. And he pointed to one of his sunburnt dusty children who was climbing the turnpike-gate, and said, extending his open right hand in remonstrance with Universal Nature. ‘Five on ’em!’
‘But how to improve Turnpike business?’ said I.
‘There’s a way, master,’ said he, with the air of one who had thought deeply on the subject.
‘I should like to know it.’
‘Lay a toll on everything as comes through; lay a toll on walkers. Lay another toll on everything as don’t come through; lay a toll on them as stops at home.’
‘Would the last remedy be fair?’
‘Fair? Them as stops at home, could come through if they liked; couldn’t they?’
‘Say they could.’