“That there dog; he won’t forget that whack I give him on the ribs for long enough.”
“Needn’t have thrown so hard.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t like to see dogs hurt,” said Ram, who was dealing with an awkward knot.
“Oh, don’t you! Why, if your father had been along here with that rusty old gun of hisn, that he shoots rabbits with, and seen that dog scratching among them stones, know what he’d have done?”
“No.”
“Well, then, I do. He’d have shot him. And if I ketches him ferretin’ about there again, I’ll drop a big flat stone down on him, and then chuck him off the cliff.”
“If you do, I’ll chuck you down after him,” said Ram.
“What?” cried the man, bursting into a fresh roar of laughter. “Oh, come, I likes that. Why, you pup! That’s what you are—a pup.”
This was uttered with what was meant to be a most contemptuous intonation of the voice.