“How will you get it, then?”
“Put some salt on its tail,” said the man grinning. “Get out! Here, I say, could we catch some tench in the mill-pond to-day?”
“Mebbe yes, mebbe no.”
“Well, we’re going to try. You have some worms ready for me—a penn’orth.”
“Tuppence, sir.”
“A penny. Why, you’ve just had a penny for nothing.”
“All right, master. Going?”
“Yes, I’m showing him round,” said Mercer. “Come along, Burry, we’ll go and see old Lomax now.”
He led the way out of the kitchen garden, and round by a field where the Doctor’s Alderney cows were grazing, then through a shrubbery to the back of the thatched cottage I had dimly seen as the fly drove by the previous night.
“Left, right! Three quarters half face. As you never were. Left counter-jumper march! Halt stare at pease!”