Me said—
"The blighters won't let me pop it! They all want to know how I came by it! Dash their infernal impudence! Why, they'd have had the cops on me if I'd stopped to argue about it! You'd better take it yourself. But I'll be even with some of 'em yet, clash and bash them! I'll burn their very bad-word houses down about their ears before they're much older!"
In this dreadful way he went on for some time; then I tried to calm him down and told him he must not feel too much hurt because common, crafty men in shops regarded him suspiciously. I said—
"You evidently lost your temper with them, and that is never right or wise. It was your boots that made them doubt you. You ought quietly to have told them who you are, and about the King shaking hands with you, and the bank breaking, and so on. Then they would have understood, and if they had been Christian men, they would have sympathized with you and very likely have given six or seven shillings for the telescope."
He said, rather foolishly—
"Given six or seven grandmothers for the telescope!"
Then he seemed to grow suddenly suspicious of me and he asked—
"Where did you get it from anyhow? If I thought you'd sneaked it, I'd——"
"I got it from my Uncle Horace," I said. "He is an amateur astronomer and understands the stars."
"Well, I ought to understand three balls by this time," answered the major-general, though what this meant I have never understood myself to this day.