He spoke shortly; but Litvinoff had a reason for wishing to talk to the man, and so was content to ignore a curtness of manner which at any other time he would have been the first to resent.
In a few minutes the two were walking over the hard road side by side.
'Do you happen to know Mr Ferrier?'
'Ay; Ah work i' their mill.'
'I suppose they are great favourites hereabouts?'
'They're good lads enow,' said the elder man; 'better nor most o' them.'
'Better than most of whom?'
'Most of the masters and gentlefolks and that like,' said the man, rather sullenly.
'You don't seem to like gentlemen, my friend.'
'Ah don't like them well enough to believe either as they're my friends or as Ah'm theirs,' was the answer, given with a haughty resentment of Litvinoff's epithet, which that gentleman found amusing.