“I went over this morning to my neighbour’s, sir, as you may see by the basket.”
“Yes, madam,” said Uncle Paul, who was staring hard at his nephew’s back and scratching one ear vigorously.
“I told her all about it, of course, sir, and her master was there having his breakfast before he went out peat-cutting, and if you’ll believe me, sir, he did nothing but laugh, and said he knew it was the prisoners, sure enough, and he had the impudence to say that it was a great blessing that they came to my cottage instead of to his, and lucky for the prisoners too, for they’d got a better fit.”
“Ah, yes, Mrs Champernowne,” said Uncle Paul, pulling out his watch and frowning very hard in its face; “but do you think your neighbour’s ham will be as good as yours?”
“Oh yes, sir—better, I expect, for it was a lovely little pig when it was fatted up and killed last Christmas; one of those little fat, short-legged, dunkey ones with turn-up snouts. My husband used to say they were the Chinese breed, and that was why the ham and bacon always went so well with China tea. You may depend upon that ham, sir, being beautiful.”
“Very singular fact, Mrs Champernowne,” said Uncle Paul blandly. “Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind cutting the rashers a little thicker. I am rather ashamed of my nephew’s appetite; but then you see he’s only a hungry, growing boy.”
Uncle Paul took out his watch again, and this time their landlady took the hint, and hurried into the kitchen, from which delicious odours soon began to escape, and in the midst of the examination upon the window-sill, where the bright sun lit up the lenses of the microscope, the magnified hydrae, with their buds and wondrous developments, were set aside, to be superseded by the morning meal.
“Ah, yes,” said Uncle Paul, thoroughly mollified now by Mrs Champernowne’s preparations, “there are worse disasters at sea, Pickle, and I’d worn that old coat off and on for a good many years.”
“You couldn’t have worn it off and on, uncle,” said Rodd dryly.
“Look here, sir; if your mother, my dear sister, had had the slightest idea that you would have grown up into such an impertinent, two-edged-tongued young scrub, I don’t believe she’d have died and left you in my charge. I suppose you meant that to be very witty, sir. Please understand that I was only speaking figuratively. Now we will just spend about an hour over those specimens, and then, as it is so beautiful and fine, we will be off on to the moor again. You will take your fishing-rod, of course?”