“Where are you going to stay?”
“Long o’ you.”
“Oh!”
A great many puffs of smoke followed here, and several pinches of snuff, as the two old men sat on either side of the fire and stared hard at each other, their likeness being now wonderful, as far as their heads were concerned.
“Hard up?” said Mr Jabez at last.
“No. Want to borrow a sov?”
“No,” said Mr Jabez shortly; and there was again a silence.
“I’ll have a drop of gin and water, Grace,” said Mr Jabez, after a very long and awkward pause for me.
I mixed it for him with alacrity.
“You two friendly?” said Mr Peter at last, making a strenuous effort to thrust one finger into the bowl of his pipe without removing the waxed end from his lips, but finding it impossible, without apparently swallowing a goodly portion, from the length of the stem.