Pannell gave vent to a most curious sound that was like nothing so much as one that might have been emitted if his forge bellows had suddenly burst. To give vent to that sound he opened his mouth wide, clapped his hands on his leather apron, and bent nearly double.
“Why, Pannell!” I exclaimed.
Poof! He stamped first one leg on the black iron dust and ashes, and then the other, going round his anvil and grumbling and rumbling internally in the most extraordinary manner.
Then he looked me in the face and exploded once more, till his mirth and the absurdity of his antics grew infectious, and I laughed too.
“And you’re going to set a big trap to catch that there”—poof—“that theer very big rat, eh?”
“Yes,” I said, “if I can.”
“And you want me,” he whispered, with his eyes starting with suppressed mirth, “to make you that theer big trap.”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll do it,” he whispered, becoming preternaturally solemn. “Stop! ’Tween man an’ man you know.”
He held out his great black hard hand, which I grasped.