“Ketch!” he shouted, and he threw the bundle from the barge to the shore, where I caught it, and he slowly plodded back, after giving me a friendly nod.
I took my bundle under my arm and rejoined Jack, who was whistling his minor air, and then we boys looked at each other dolefully.
“Aintcher going?” said Jack at last.
“Yes,” I said, “I’m going directly.” Then, quickly pulling out a little penknife I had in my pocket, I held it to Jack. “Will you have that, Jack?” I said.
His eyes sparkled as he took it, but he did not speak.
“Do you think I might give your father something for letting me come up along with you?” I said.
Jack stared in a dull, stolid way for a moment, the idea being so novel to him. Then his face lit up and he checked the horses.
“Hold on, fey-ther,” he shouted; and as if it was quite right to obey his son’s words, the great fellow steered the long barge so that it came close in.
“There’s a beer-shop,” said Jack, pointing to a place close by the towing-path, all glorious with blue and gold announcements of Barclay, Perkins and Co.’s Entire. “You go and get a pot o’ porter—it’s threepence ha’penny, mind—and give it the old man; we’ll wait.”
I ran up to the door of the public-house and asked the man in shirt-sleeves and white apron for a pot of porter, which he drew in the bright pewter vessel, and I paid for it with one of my sixpences, received my change, and then had to make solemn assurance that I would bring back the pot before I was allowed to take it down to the canal-side, where Jack and his father were waiting.