“But has your brother-in-law come back?”
“Oh, ay, he’s got back.”
“And will he take my friend across to Cherbourg?”
“Oh, I have been having a long fight with him about that, sir. He’s got a nasty disposition, he has. I telled him that I’d give him a good price for doing the job, and that I’d go as far as three pounds.”
“What!” cried Waller. “I told you five.”
“To be sure you did, sir, but I warn’t going to let him have all his own way, so I said three, meaning, if he argufied very much, to spring another pound and make it four. But he wouldn’t. He stuck out for the five, and I had to promise him.”
“Oh, but you shouldn’t have wasted time over that, Bunny.”
“Don’t you tell me, Master Waller. I know brother Jem better than you do. He’s a close-fisted one, brother Jem is, and he always takes care that them as buys his fish to sell ashore shan’t have too much profit. Why, if I had offered him five pound right off he’d have held out for six. But don’t you get wasting time talking. There aren’t none to lose.”
“No time to lose? What do you mean?” said Waller.
“Ah, you don’t know, then? The soldiers is coming here to-night.”