“Ah, you can't do that all in a minute; see the time I have been at it.”
“Ah, to be sure, I forgot your antiquity.”
“And it isn't the time only; it's giving your mind to it, old chap.”
“What, you don't give your mind to your books, then, as you do to your fiddle, young gentleman?”
“Not such a flat. Why, lookee here, governor, if you go and give your mind to a thing you don't like, it's always time wasted, because some other chap, that does like it, will beat you, and what's the use working for to be beat?”
“'For' is redundant,” objected Rolfe.
“But if you stick hard to the things you like, you do 'em downright well. But old people are such fools, they always drive you the wrong way. They make the gals play music six hours a day, and you might as well set the hen bullfinches to pipe. Look at the gals as come here, how they rattle up and down the piano, and can't make it sing a morsel. Why, they couldn't rattle like that, if they'd music in their skins, d—n 'em; and they drive me to those stupid books, because I'm all for music and moonshine. Can you keep a secret?”
“As the tomb.”
“Well, then, I can do plenty of things well, besides fiddling; I can set a wire with any poacher in the parish. I have caught plenty of our old man's hares in my time; and it takes a workman to set a wire as it should be. Show me a wire, and I'll tell you whether it was Hudson, or Whitbeck, or Squinting Jack, or who it was that set it. I know all their work that walks by moonlight hereabouts.”
“This is criticism; a science; I prefer art; play me another tune, my bold Bohemian.”