“I should hope he would. He’s fun me a hot one a’ready,” said Sim.
“He’s a good sort, is parson,” said Johnson, the butcher; “and it’s how do, and shake hands, as friendly with ye, as if you was the best in the land.”
“Yes,” said the grocer; “and he don’t come begging and borrowing always.”
“Begging, no,” said Johnson, chuckling. “Why, he’s paid me thutty pounds this last ten days for meat.”
“Thutty pounds!” said the landlord.
“Ay, all that.”
“What for?” said Sim.
“Meat for soup,” said Johnson.
“Ah, and I’ve took a lot of him for grosheries,” said the grocer.
“Yes; he’s giving away a sight o’ money,” said the landlord, “to them as is on strike and wants it. He says to me, only yesterday, when I went across to take him a bit o’ Marquory—it was some as we’d got very fine—‘Thankye, Robinson,’ he says, ‘so that’s Mercury, is it?’—he called it ‘Mercury.’ ‘I never see any before,’ he says. ‘We call it Good King Henry down in the South.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ I says, ‘that’s marquory, and as good a vegetable as you can eat.’ ‘Makes a difference in your trade, this strike, I suppose,’ he says. ‘Our takings aint been above half, sir,’ I says, ‘since it begun.’ ‘Sorry for it,’ he says, ‘sorry for it. I don’t dislike to see men come and have their pipe and glass in moderation, and then chat after work; and I’m sure, Robinson,’ he says, ‘you are not the man to let any one exceed.’ ‘Never do if I can help it, sir,’ I says; and then he talked for ever so long, and then he took me in and give me a glass o’ wine, and shew’d me his silver cups as he’d won at college, and rowing and running, and one thing and another; and when I was coming away he says, ‘Tell me,’ he says, ‘if you hear of anybody very hard pushed through the strike, and I’ll see what I can do.’”