“He said he would, if ever he caught him there.”
“Seen him lately?” I said.
“No; have you?”
“Not since the cricket match day, when I was going to Bob Hopley’s.”
“One of the boys said he saw him hanging about, twice over, and I suppose he was trying to see me, and get a shilling out of me. I’m sure he’s had nearly a pound out of me, that I didn’t owe him. I wish I wasn’t so soft.”
“So do I.”
“Ah, now you’re laughing at me. Never mind, I’ve done with him now. Never a penny does he ever get out of me again.”
“Till next time, Tom,” I said.
“No, nor next time neither. I don’t suppose we shall see much more of him here, for Bob Hopley says that so sure as he catches him poaching, he shall speak out pretty plainly, so as to get him sent away. He says that many a time he has let him off with a good licking, sooner than get him sent to prison, for he don’t think prison’s good for young men like him.”
“I suppose it isn’t,” I said thoughtfully, as I watched my companion, and saw how lovingly he arranged and rearranged his grotesque-looking creatures at the bottom and on the rough shelves of the bin that he had put up from time to time.