“He must poke his nose into everything,” the prisoners with a laugh used to say; for they pitied, and did what they could to avoid conflicts with him.
“Has he chattered enough? Three waggons wouldn’t be too much to carry away all his talk.”
“Why need you put your oar in? One is not going to put himself about for a mere idiot. What’s there to cry out about at a mere touch of a lancet?”
“What harm in the world do you fancy that is going to do you?”
“No, comrades,” a prisoner strikes in, “the cuppings are a mere nothing. I know the taste of them. But the most horrid thing is when they pull your ears for a long time together. That just shuts you up.”
All the prisoners burst out laughing.
“Have you had them pulled?”
“By Jove, yes, I should think he had.”
“That’s why they stick upright, like hop-poles.”
This convict, Chapkin by name, really had long and quite erect ears. He had long led a vagabond life, was still quite young, intelligent, and quiet, and used to talk with a dry sort of humour with much seriousness on the surface, which made his stories very comical.