“Do you know, Joseph,” said the earl, in a casual tone, “I think I shall have to get you to take this turn. I am a little tired.”
“Carried it last turn,” said Joseph, decidedly. “A bargain's a bargain.”
“Certainly, certainly,” returned his lordship, “a bargain is a bargain, Joseph.” He sat down upon one of the lower rungs of the ladder and fanned himself with a pocket-handkerchief. “But you know, Joseph,” he began again after a pause, “nobody pushes a bargain too hard. If you carry the ladder this time I will carry it next. Come now—what do you say to that?”
“It's a quarter of a mile from here to Willis's,” said Joseph, “and it ain't five score yards from theer to the Tan-yard. Theer's some,” he added, with an almost philosophic air, “as knows when they are well off.”
“I'll give you an extra penny,” said his lordship, condescending to bargain.
“I'll do it for a extry sixpince,” replied Joseph.
“I'll make it twopence,” said his lordship—“twopence and a screw of snuff.”
“I'll do it for a extry sixpince,” Joseph repeated, doggedly.
Noblesse oblige. There was a point beyond which the Earl of Barfield could not haggle. He surrendered, but it galled him, and the agreeable sense of humor with which he commonly regarded Joseph Beaker failed him for the rest of that afternoon. It happened, also, that the people who remained to be encountered one and all opposed him, and with the exception of his triumph over the Widow Hotchkiss the day was a day of failure.
When, therefore, his lordship turned his steps homeward he was in a mood to be tart with anybody, and it befell that Ferdinand was the first person on whom he found an opportunity of venting his gathered sours. The young gentleman heaved in sight near the lodge gates, smoking a cigar and gazing about him with an air of lazy nonchalance which had very much the look of being practised in hours of private leisure. Behind him came the valet, bearing the big square color-box, the camp-stool, and the clumsy field easel.