“I'll goo an' do it,” said Joseph, thus fortified, “this instant minute.”
“Wait a bit Joseph,” said Reuben Gold, “I'm going that way. We'll go a little of the road together.”
“Now, Mr. Gold,” cried Snac, in a whisper, recognizing Reuben's voice before he turned, “don't you go an' spoil sport.”
“Snac, my lad,” responded Reuben, smiling, “it's poor sport.”
“He'd go an' tell him,” said Snac, with a delighted grin. “You can mek him say annythin'.”
“That's why it's such poor sport,” said Reuben. “It's too easy. It's sport to stand up for a bout with the sticks when the other man's a bit better than you are, but it's no fun to beat a baby.”
“I like it better,” Snac replied, with candor, “when th' odds is on t'other side. I like to be a bit better than t'other chap.”
“You like to win? That's natural. But you like to deserve a bit of praise for winning; eh?”
Reuben walked away with the rescued Joseph at his side. Joseph was as yet unconscious of his rescue, and was fully bent upon his message to the earl.
“Theer's no denyin' that chap nothin,” said Snac, looking after Reuben's retiring figure. “He's got that form an' smilin' manner as'll tek no such thing as a no. An' lettin' that alone,” he continued, again relapsing into candor, “he could punch my head if he wanted to, though I'm a match for ere another man i' the parish—and he'd do it too, at anny given minute, for all so mild as he is.”