“You’re suspicious of the best friend you’ve got in the world.”
“Not a spark. But I want you to see what an awful solemn thing I reckon it.”
“Then may God rot me, and plague me, and let me roast in hell-fire with the rogues for ever and a day, if I so much as whisper your news to man or mouse! There, will that do?”
“No call to drag in hell fire, ’cause I knaw you doan’t set no count on it. More doan’t I. Hell’s cold ashes now if all what you ve said is true. But you’ve sworn all right and now I’ll tell ’e.”
He bent forward and whispered in the other’s ear, whereon Hicks started in evident amazement and showed himself much concerned.
“Good Heavens! Man alive, are you mad?”
“You doan’t ’zactly look on ahead enough, Clem,” said Will loftily. “Ban’t the thing itself’s gwaine to make a fortune, but what comes of it. ’Tis a tidy stepping-stone lead-in’ to gert matters very often, as your books tell, I dare say.”
“It can’t lead to anything whatever in your case but wasted years.”
“I’m best judge of that. I’ve planned the road, and if I ban’t home again inside ten year as good a man as Grimbal or any other I’ll say I was wrong.”
“You’re a bigger fool than even I thought, Blanchard.”