Filling his pipe quietly, he struck a match and lit it, placed his hands beneath his head, and stared straight up through the tender green leaves at the bare sky, while a robin came and perched upon a branch close by, and kept watching the ruffian with his great round eyes.
“This is jolly,” he said, in a bass growl; “better than having places of your own, and being obliged to work.”
Then he smoked for a few minutes before musing once more aloud.
“Women arn’t much account,” he said, oracularly; “and the younger and prettier they are, the worse they are.”
There was another interval of smoking.
“What a deal a fellow sees by just doing nothing but hang around. Franky Mallow, eh? Ah, he cuts me now. If I was John Berry, farmer, I’d cut him, that’s what I’d do.”
Another interval of smoking.
“Why don’t young Serrol,” (so he pronounced it) “go after the schoolmissus now, I wonder? Tired, I spose.”
Another smoking interval.
“Hah, if it’s because he prefers going down to the ford—”