“Sure I do, Mas’r Harry. Talkin’ ’bout going abroad.”
“But where?”
“I d’know, Mas’r Harry; only it’s along o’ you.”
“But, my good fellow,” I said, “perhaps I’m about to do very wrong in going.”
“Then, p’r’aps I am, Mas’r Harry,” he replied, “and that don’t matter.”
“But it might be the ruin of your prospects, Tom.”
“Ruin o’ my prospecks!” cried Tom. “Hark at him!” and he seemed to be addressing a pile of chests. “Don’t see as there’s much prospeck in looking down into a taller tub. I could do that anywheres.”
“But you don’t understand me, Tom,” I cried.
“Don’t want to, Mas’r Harry,” he said. “I know as I’m allers gettin’ my face slapped when I go into the kitchen; that I always get the smell o’ the tallow in my nose and can’t get it out; and that I hate soap to such an extent that I wouldn’t care if I never touched a bit again.”
“Oh, but you’ll get on here, Tom, in time, and perhaps rise to be foreman.”