“Indeed, Mr Brime, and you’d been thinking of that sort o’ thing, sir?”
“P’raps I had and p’r’aps I hadn’t,” snarled the gardener, savagely. “Not the first man, I suppose, as thought of it.”
“No, sir, indeed. I’ve been thinking of it for years, and making my bits o’ preparation; but,”—he said with a sigh—“it hasn’t come off yet.”
A brother in disappointment. The gardener felt satisfied and disposed to be confidential, although the lather was beginning to feel cold and clammy, and the tiny vesicles were bursting and dying away.
“Yes, I were thinking about it, Mr Wimble,” he said bitterly; “and I were going to speak, and I dessay afore long you’d ha’ heared us asked in church, and now this comes and upsets it all.”
“Don’t say that, sir,” said the barber, still stropping his razor gently. “Like everything else, it passes away and is forgotten. You’ve only got to wait.”
“Got to wait!” cried the gardener; “why, the trouble has ’most killed her, sir, and how do I know what’s going to happen next?”
“Ah, bad indeed, sir.”
“Our young Miss’ll never stop in that great place now; and, of course, it’s a month’s warning, and not a chance of another place nigh here.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Mr Brime, sir. That’s the worst way of looking at it.”