"No you won't, my dear," answered her father. "Dinah's more like to than you."
"I don't want his secrets," declared Dinah.
"We'm often burdened with secrets we don't want," replied Ben. "It's part of duty sometimes to listen to 'em; though I grant the folk most ready to tell their secrets are often the hardest to help. Silliness is a misfortune that little can be done for."
"He won't be in no hurry to tell his secrets, if he's got any," prophesied Mrs. Bamsey. "He's not that sort."
CHAPTER VIII
THE OLD FOX-HUNTER
Joe Stockman had tried a new haricot bean for his own table and was now engaged in the easy task of shelling the brown husks and extracting the pearly white seeds. It amused him and put no strain upon his faculties. But he tired of it after ten minutes. He sat in an out-house with a mass of the dried pods beside him, and as the boy, Neddy Tutt, passed by, Joe's eye twinkled and he called.
"Look here, Ned—a-proper wonder—I'll show 'e something as no human eye have ever seen since the beginning of the world!" he cried out, and Neddy, agape, approached.
"Don't you be frightened," said Joe. "Won't hurt 'e."
Then under the lad's round eyes, he opened a bean pod and roared with laughter. Neddy also grinned.