“You niver thowt so, Sim,” said the jovial little grocer, laughing, “till I wouldn’t give thee any more credit till thou had paid what thee owdst.”
“I can pay yow any day,” said Sim, chinking the money in his pocket.
“Yes, but yow wean’t,” said the grocer, imitating Sim’s broad Lincoln dialect. “Yes, I wanted to hear a bit o’ the news,” he continued, “so I thowt I’d put up the shuts and have a gill and a pipe, same as another man; for I niver object to my ’lowance, as is good for any man as works hard.”
“So ’tis, so ’tis,” chorussed several.
“How chuff we are to-night,” said Sim, with a sneer; “why, yow’re getting quite sharp. Yow wearn’t so nation fast wi’ your tongue fore yow took to trade and was only a bricklayer. It’s all very fine for a man to marry a grocer’s widow, and take to her trade and money, and then come and teach others, and bounce about his money.”
“Oh, I’m not ashamed of having handled the mortar-trowel before I took to the sugar-scoop,” said the grocer, laughing.
“When it used to be to the boy,” continued Sim, mimicking the other’s very slow drawling speech: “‘Joey, wilt thou bring me another brick?’ and then thou used to groan because it weer so heavy.”
“Sim Slee’s in full swing to-night,” said another guest.
“He will be if he don’t look out, for Tom Podmore says he’s sure he had a hand in getting away Daisy Banks,” said another; “and Joe Banks is sure of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hung him.”
“Don’t you be so nation fast,” said Sim, changing colour a little, but laughing it off the next moment. “Iv I were a owry chap like thee, Sam’l Benson, I’d wesh mesen afore I took to talking about other folk. It was Sam’l, you know,” continued Sim, to the others, “that owd parson spoke to when he weer a boy. ‘When did thee wesh thee hands last, Sam?’ he says, pointing at ’em wi’ his stick. ‘When we’d done picking tates,’ says Sam, He, he, he! and that was three months before, and parson give ’im a penny to ware in soap.”