“Me! Well, you see this yer cob. It’s worth nothin’, ’cos all the mealies been shelled off. That’s me—I’m a shelled cob, and wimmen folk isn’t got any use for that sort of bargain.”
“But you told me the other day that you were thinking of marriage once. That time, you know, when the Kaffirs smashed your furniture.”
“Jes’ so—the critturs. They broke a fine four-posted bed and a hull lot o’ chiney.”
“And the lady.”
“You see, bossie, she was gone on that four-poster and the chiney. ’Twasn’t me she was thinkin’ of nohow.”
“Nonsense, Abe; you’re too modest.”
“Well, she forgot me, an’ took up with a armchair an’ a copper kettle which belonged to young Buck Wittal, son to ole Bob. A armchair an’ a shiney kettle, that’s what cut me out, sonny; but Buck went up the gum ’cos she would have a swing lookin’-glass. That’s so! Wimmen is mighty keen on the look o’ things, an’ that kettle fetched her. Them was times!”
“Courting times?”
“Fighting times, sonny; all up an’ down the country, in an’ out the kloofs, an’ over the mountains, by gum. I tole you about that chief—how I spoored him a full forty mile from the Chumie after Black ’Xmas?”
“Black ’Xmas!”