“You don’t want no clothes,” said the old man, in studied sarcasm; “you’re goin’ to live in the water. You don’t want no more clothes,” he added over his shoulder with fine irony, “no more clothes nor a conger eel.”
Tom waited until the punt was well over to the opposite side, and then he went hand-over-hand for shore, landing with the coot in record time.
He shook himself like a spaniel, and darted into the neighbouring scrub.
Old Tom Pagdin brought the milk-cart over in studied silence. Dave made one futile effort to open up a conversation, leading off with a honeyed remark about the weather, but the puntman took no more notice of him than the Suffete of ancient Carthage might have taken of a crippled slave.
As soon as the punt touched shore and the captain took the chain down, Dave gathered up his reins, and got away quickly, and the old man went up the bank to the house with his son’s raiment firmly gripped in one hand and the strap in the other.
“I’ll wait for ye,” he remarked loudly to the adjacent scenery; “I’ll wait for ye if I ’ave to wait till the Day of Jiniral Jidgmint!”
Meanwhile Tom had cut through the scrub and was waiting for Dave down the road, naked and unashamed.
The red-headed boy pulled up.
“My gosh!” he said, cheeringly, “the old man ’as got his rag out. He’ll flay yer alive, he will, when he gets you.”
“He ain’t going to get me,” replied Tom.