"Now, master, if you're to be my lantern, don't you be a Jacky Lantern, which I take to mean one as leads you the wrong way. For I'll tell you what—if you've had the luck to fall in wi' Tommy Trounsem, don't you let him drop."
"No, no—to be sure not," said Christian. "Come along here. We'll go to the Back Brewery wall first."
"No, no; don't you let me drop. Give me a shilling any day you like, and I'll tell you more nor you'll hear from Spilkins in a week. There isna many men like me. I carried pots for fifteen year off and on—what do you think o' that now, for a man as might ha' lived up there at Trounsem Park, and snared his own game? Which I'd ha' done," said Tommy, wagging his head at Christian in the dimness undisturbed by gas. "None o' your shooting for me—it's two to one you'll miss. Snaring's more fishing-like. You bait your hook, and if it isna the fishes' good-will to come, that's nothing again' the sporting genelman. And that's what I say by snaring."
"But if you'd a right to the Transome estate, how was it you were kept out of it, old boy? It was some foul shame or other, eh?"
"It's the law—that's what it is. You're a good sort of chap; I don't mind telling you. There's folks born to property, and there's folks catch hold on it; and the law's made for them to catch hold. I'm pretty deep; I see a good deal further than Spilkins. There was Ned Patch, the peddler, used to say to me, 'You canna read, Tommy,' says he. 'No; thank you,' says I; 'I'm not going to crack my headpiece to make myself as big a fool as you.' I was fond o' Ned. Many's the pot we've had together."
"I see well enough you're deep, Tommy. How came you to know you were born to property?"
"It was the regester—the parish regester," said Tommy, with his knowing wag of the head, "that shows as you was born. I allays felt it inside me as I was somebody, and I could see other chaps thought it on me too; and so one day at Littleshaw, where I kep' ferrets and a little bit of a public, there come a fine man looking after me, and walking me up and down wi' questions. And I made out from the clerk as he'd been at the regester; and I gave the clerk a pot or two, and he got it off our parson as the name o' Trounsem was a great name hereabout. And I waits a bit for my fine man to come again. Thinks I, if there's property wants a right owner, I shall be called for; for I didn't know the law then. And I waited and waited, till I see'd no fun i' waiting. So I parted with my public and my ferrets—for she was dead a' ready, my wife was, and I hadn't no cumbrance. And off I started a pretty long walk to this country-side, for I could walk for a wager in them days."
"Ah! well, here we are at the Back Brewery wall. Put down your paste and your basket now, old boy, and I'll help you. You paste, and I'll give you the bills, and then you can go on talking."
Tommy obeyed automatically, for he was now carried away by the rare opportunity of talking to a new listener, and was only eager to go on with his story. As soon as his back was turned, and he was stooping over his paste-pot, Christian, with quick adroitness, exchanged the placards in his own bag for those in Tommy's basket. Christian's placards had not been printed at Treby, but were a new lot which had been sent from Duffield that very day—"highly spiced," Quorlen had said, "coming from a pen that was up to that sort of thing." Christian had read the first of the sheaf, and supposed they were all alike. He proceeded to hand one to Tommy and said—
"Here, old boy, paste this over the other. And so, when you got into this country-side, what did you do?"