Mr Solomon grunted, and I looked on, shivering a little in spite of the hot sunshine as I saw the ladder lifted out and laid down beside the path by Ike, after which Mr Solomon himself helped to put the stone back in its place before walking with the plumber towards the gate.
“How was it all, Ike?” I said eagerly.
“Oh, you’d better ask young Shock here.”
Shock, who was in a stiff suit of corduroys, looked at him sharply, spun round, and ran off.
“Y’ever see the likes o’ him?” said Ike chuckling. “Puts me in mind of a scared dog, he do, reg’lar.”
“But tell me,” I said; “how was it? I don’t remember.”
“Well, it were like this, you see,” said Ike. “I were holding the rope tightly and watching of you, and I see you slip on the noose, and tightened it, and then all at once I shouted to the others, ‘Hook on,’ I says, ‘it’s got him.’
“I was on the watch for it, you see, and ready, and hauled at once. Thank goodness, I am strong in the arm if I ain’t in the head. So I hauled, and they hauled, and so had you both up a few feet directly, one at each end of the rope, and you two couldn’t be civil to each other even then, but must get quarrelling.”
“Quarrelling! Nonsense, Ike! I was insensible, and so was he.”
“I don’t care; you was quarrelling and got yourselves tangled up together, and the rope twissen round and round under one of them bits o’ wood as goes acrost.”