“Ay, do, master, for that chap I knows wants it badly.”
“Come along, and let’s shut it up safely,” said Mercer.
“S’pose you let me take care of him in the tool-shed. I’ll put him where he can’t get out, and I shall have him ready when you come.”
“Very well then,” cried Mercer, “you keep him. At the High Pines, then, at seven o’clock.”
“That’s it, sir,” said Magglin, securing the ferret in his pocket.
“Ah, good morning,” said a voice; and we two turned sharply, to find that Mr Rebble and Mr Hasnip, who were out early for a constitutional, had come up behind us quietly.
“Good morning, sir.—Good morning, sir,” we said, and Magglin touched his cap and went off down the garden.
“Very good, Mercer. Very good, Burr junior,” said Mr Hasnip blandly, as he brought his dark spectacles to bear upon us. “I like to see this, and I wish the other boys would be as industrious, and get up these lovely mornings. Been making plans with the gardener about your little gardens, I see. That’s right—that’s right. But, as I was saying, Rebble,” he continued, turning away, “Galileo’s opinion, when combined with that of Kepler and Copernicus, is all buzz-buzz-buzz—”
So the latter part of his speech sounded to us, as they went on toward the bottom of the garden.
“All buzz buzz buzz,” whispered Mercer; “and that’s what lots of others of those old folks’ opinions sound like to me—all buzz buzz buzz in my poor head. I say, wasn’t it lucky they didn’t see the ferret?”