“I’ll give you threepence if you’ll give me half your dinner.”
“I don’t want your threepence,” he said scornfully. “You shall have half if you give me half your new bread and cheese. Ourn’s allus stale. Look, here’s some cold apple puff too.”
So there was, and delicious it looked, sufficiently so to make my mouth water.
“Got a knife, matey?”
“Yes,” I said, “but—”
“I say, I tell you what,” said my would-be host. “Have you really got threepence?”
“Yes,” I said, and was about to say more, when Mr Rowle’s words occurred to me and I was silent.
“Then we’ll have half a pint o’ cider at the next lock, and twopen’orth o’ apples, shall us?”
“Yes,” I said, delighted at the prospect; and the result was that we two hearty boys soon finished pudding, puff, and the last scrap of the bread and cheese, after which my new friend shouted, “Mother!” The boat was steered in close, and the shrill-voiced woman took the basket back.
“Is your name Jack?” I said, as I descended, and we trudged on together slowly beside the horses, each of which was now furnished with a tin bucket hung from the top of its head, and containing some beans and chaff.