“A tidy deal. I’ve been married more years than you have hours, I lay.”
“Age ban’t everything; ’t is the fashion brains in a man’s head counts most.”
“That’s right enough. ’T is something to knaw that. Gude-bye to ’e, bwoy, an’ thank you for makin’ me laugh heartier than I have this month of Sundays.”
“More fule you!” declared Will; but he was too elated at the turn of affairs to be anything but amiable just now. Before the other disappeared, he stopped him.
“Shake hands, will ’e? I thank you for lightenin’ my mind—bein’ a man of law, in a manner of speakin’. Ess, I’m obliged to ’e. Of coourse I doan’t want to come to prison ’zackly. That’s common sense.”
“Most feel same as you. No doubt you’re in the wrong, though the law caan’t drop on honest, straightforrard matrimony to my knowledge. Maybe circumstances is for ’e.”
“Ess, they be—every jack wan of ’em!” declared Will. “An’ if I doan’t come here to stop, I’ll call in some day and tell ’e the upshot of this coil in a friendly way.”
“Do so, an’ bring your missis. Shall be delighted to see the pair of ’e any time. Ax for Thomas Bates.”
Will nodded and marched off, while the warder returned to his post, and when he had again made fast the door behind him, permitted the full splendor of his recent experience to tumble over his soul in a laughter perhaps louder than any heard before or since within the confines of one of Her Majesty’s prisons.