This constable’s name was Thorpeley, and he did a great deal of business with a brass box and a short black clay-pipe, in which he smoked short black tobacco.
“I don’t know,” said Dick one day as he stood with his arms folded, leaning upon Solomon, talking to Tom Tallington and staring at Thorpeley the constable, who was leaning against a post smoking and staring with one eye at the fen, while with the other he watched the group of three in the Toft farm-yard.
“Well, I’m sure I don’t,” said Tom. “He never goes over to the town to buy any.”
“And Hicky says nobody fetches any for him, but he always seems to have plenty though he hasn’t any luggage or box or anything.”
“No; I saw him come,” said Tom. “He only had a small bundle in a red handkerchief!”
“And he keeps on smoking from morning till night.”
“And watching you!”
“Yes. He’s always watching me,” cried Dick in an aggrieved tone. “Stand still, will you? Yes, you’d better! You kick, and I’ll kick you!”
This was to Solomon, who had hitched up his back in an arch, laid down his ears, thrust his head between his fore-legs and his tail between his hind, giving himself the aspect of being about to reach under and bite the tip of the said tail. But that was not the case, and Dick knew by experience that all this was preparatory to a display of kicking.
Solomon may have understood plain English or he may not. This is a matter which cannot be decided. At all events he slowly raised his head and twisted his tail in a peculiar manner, stretched out his neck, and cocking his ears he sighed loudly a sigh like the fag-end of a long bray, all of which seemed to point to the fact that he felt himself to be a slave in leathern chains, gagged with a rusty bit, and at the mercy of his master.