"I'm ready this minute," said Simes--"I only want to go home to get a tool or two."
"And I think there's no time to be lost either," said the man with the hook nose. "But," continued he, turning his left eye downward, and looking with that orb alone into the bottom of his glass with an air of deliberate wisdom--"but how are we to go? If we four get upon the mail together, the guard will be in such a fuss about his bags, that he'll blow who we are, all the way down. Then, I think, Harry, you talked of your mare and the gig; but your mare can't run half the way, and the gig wont hold four, though I've seen you put three into it, and bad enough it looked."
"Oh, I'll lend you a phaeton for one horse," cried Mr. Andrews--"and if Mr. Martin can make him run forty miles before this time to-morrow, I'll give you a note to a friend of mine at ----, who will contrive to horse you on. You see, gentlemen, I shall expect a trifle--not so much, in course, as if I went out of town myself, but say a tenth, and upon honour."
The claim was agreed to, upon the condition of the horses being all ready and no mistakes made; and then the gentleman with the beak again brought his peculiar eye to bear upon the lump of sugar at the bottom of the tumbler, and remarked--"What I said myself, just now, gives me a good hint. Suppose we were to get Jerry Knowles and Sam Harrison to----"
"Oh, that will never do," cried Mr. Andrews, who was a man that stood upon his reputation, "those gentlemen have such a bad character that we must not bring them into the business, for there's always somebody looking out after them."
"That's the very reason," said the other. "You gentlemen from Yorkshire are so quick, that you see gooseberries upon cherry trees. These are the very men who ought to be employed for what I mean. The worse, the better for my purpose. We put dung upon a field, to make it bear, not ice cream. What I mean to say is, that everything is good in its way, and these gentlemen, though they certainly have gained themselves a reputation, may very well serve my purpose."
"Well, well! what is it?" exclaimed Harry Martin, impatiently, for he loved long speeches in nobody's mouth but his own. "Speak out, and let us hear!"
"It is," answered the hook-nosed man, "that they should be sent down by coach to Doncaster, with a promise of a five-pound note each, if the thing answers. They can go down by coach, you know, and be absent for a day or two, and go back again, taking care to get into mischief, and to have proof of where they were."
"Oh, I understand--I understand!" cried two or three voices at once.
"As a blind," said Harry Martin--"a devilish good plan; and then if they get into the brown jug, we must give them a trifle more."