“Oh, that’s about all, Punch.”
“You get on. I know better. Tain’t half all. I want you to come to the cutting off and taking the shilling.”
“Oh, you want to hear that?”
“Why, of course I do. Why, it’s all the juicy part. Don’t hang fire. Let’s have it with a rush now. Fix bayonets, and at them!”
“Why, Punch,” said Pen, laughing, “don’t you tell me again that you are not getting better!”
“I waren’t going to now. This warms a fellow up a bit. I say, your uncle is a bad un, and no mistake. There, forward!”
“But I have nearly told all, Punch. Life got so miserable at home, and I was so sick of the law, that I led such a life with my uncle through begging him to let me go back to the school, that he, one day—”
“Well, whatcher stopping for?” cried the boy, whose cheeks were flushed and eyes sparkling with excitement.
“I don’t like talking about it,” replied Pen. “I suppose I was wrong, for my father had left all the management of my affairs in his brother-in-law’s hands.”
“Why, you said your uncle’s hands just now!”