“How much for a good bacon pig?” screamed Isel to a fat butcher, who was polishing a knife upon a wooden block.
“Hertford kids? I have none.”
“Bacon pig!” screamed Isel a little louder.
“Oh! Well, look you, there’s a nice one—twenty pence; there’s a rare fine one—twenty-two; there’s a—”
“Bless thee, man! dost thou think I’m made of money?”
“Shouldn’t wonder if you’d a pot laid by somewhere,” said the butcher with a knowing wink. He was an old acquaintance.
“Well, I haven’t, then: and what’s more, I’ve plenty to do with the few marks I have. Come now, I’ll give you sixteen pence for that biggest fellow.”
The butcher intimated, half in a shout and half by pantomime, that he could not think of such a thing.
“Well, eighteen, then.”
The butcher shook his head.