“No,” I said sadly, “there is no chance there. What would you do?”
“Well,” he said, taking off his carpet cap, and stroking his thin grey hair, “it’s easy to advise anybody, but it ain’t easy to advise right.”
“Never mind,” I said, “try.”
“Well, sir, speaking as a poor man, if I was like you, out of a ’gagement, and no character ’cept for being able to thrash your own master—”
“Oh, Dingle!” I cried.
“Well, sir, it’s true enough,” he said; and he bent down to indulge in a long silent fit of laughter.
“Don’t do that,” I said uneasily, “it’s nothing to laugh at.”
“Well, ’tis, and it ’tisn’t, sir,” said Dingle, wiping his eyes on the corner of his apron.
“What would you do if you were out of an engagement?”
“Me? I should do what my brother did—hemigrate.”