A Queer Character.
“Old Boil O’s in a regular rage,” said Josh, laughing.
“Well, but he hasn’t been talking to you about it, has he?” replied Will.
“Yes; said your father must be getting off his head to go and buy up such a miserable ramshackle piece of rubbish. It was only fit to knock to pieces and sell for old copper.”
“Old Drinkwater had better keep his tongue quiet,” said Will, shortly, “or he’ll make my father so much off his head that he will give him what he calls the sack.”
“Nonsense! Your father would not turn away such an old servant as that.”
“He wouldn’t like to, of course,” said Will, loftily; “but Boil O has grown so precious bumptious, and he doesn’t care to do this, and he doesn’t care to do that. I believe he thinks he’s master of the whole place.”
“Well, he always was so ever since I can remember; but—tchah!—your father would not turn him away. My father says he is the most useful man he ever knew. Why, he’s just like what we say when we count the rye-grass: soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor—you know.”
“Oh, yes, I know,” said Will, “and he isn’t soldier nor thief; but he can do pretty well everything, from making a box, plastering and painting, to mending a lock or shoeing a horse. But such impudence! My father mad, indeed! I think it was a very wise thing for him to do, to buy that engine so cheaply. The old mill’s nearly all wood. Suppose it were to catch fire?”
“Bother!” said Josh. “Why hasn’t it caught fire all these two hundred years since it was built?”