“If you’re really sorry, I’ll forgive you; and I should like to help you to be better, if I knew how it could be done.”
“Sure I’d be very much obliged to ’e if you’d larn me a thing or two,” said the Jacky-Toad humbly.
“You see, I’m going back to London to-morrow, so there won’t be much time.”
“Damned if I won’t come with ’e! Then you can larn me proper,” exclaimed the Jacky-Toad.
“You mustn’t say things like that—it’s wicked. Where did you pick up such words?”
“From the moor-men, when they comed to cut peat in the bog. But ’tis awnly a figger o’ speech.”
Mabel thought a moment.
“Well, in your case I suppose it is,” she said; “because—I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I don’t suppose you go anywhere in particular when you die, do you?”
“Caan’t say, never havin’ heard tell,” he answered.
So the small girl fixed her mind on a noble resolve, and finally undertook to let the ignorant Jacky-Toad accompany her to town the following day.