“At least I’ll thank you to make up your mind. ’T is turn an’ turn about. You be uppermost just this minute. As to ruining me, that’s as may be.”
“Well, I shall decide presently. I suppose you won’t run away. And it ’s no great matter if you do, for a fool can’t hide himself under his folly.”
“I sha’n’t run. I want to get through with this and have it behind me.”
“You ’re in a hurry now.”
“It ’s just an’ right. I knaw that. An’ ban’t no gert odds who ’s informer. But I want to have it behind me—an’ you in front. Do ’e see? This out o’ hand, then it ’s my turn again. Keepin’ me waitin’ ’pon such a point be tu small an’ womanish for a fight between men. ’T is your turn to hit, Jan Grimbal, an’ theer ’s no guard ’gainst the stroke, so if you ’re a man, hit an’ have done with it.”
“Ah! you don’t like the thought of waiting!”
“No, I do not. I haven’t got your snake’s patience. Let me have what I’ve got to have, an’ suffer it, an’ make an’ end of it.”
“You ’re in a hurry for a dish that won’t be pleasant eating, I assure you.”
“It’s just an’ right I tell ’e; an’ I knaw it is, though all these years cover it. Your paart ’s differ’nt. I lay you ’m in a worse hell than me, even now.”
“A moralist! How d’ you like the thought of a damned good flogging—fifty lashes laid on hot and strong?”