“What sort of a husband?”
“He is dead.”
“Ha! that’s an opening, but ’tain’t an answer. I’m off to Beckley on a marriage business. I’m the son of a cobbler, so I go in a donkey-cart. No damned pretences for me. I’m going to marry off a young tailor to a gal he’s been playing the lord to. If she cares for him she’ll take him: if not, they’re all the luckier, both of ’em.”
“What’s the tailor’s name?” said Mrs. Mel.
“You are a woman,” returned Old Tom. “Now, come, ma’am, don’t you feel ashamed of being in a donkeycart?”
“I’m ashamed of men, sometimes,” said Mrs. Mel; “never of animals.”
“’Shamed o’ me, perhaps.”
“I don’t know you.”
“Ha! well! I’m a man with no pretences. Do you like ’em? How have you brought up your three girls and one boy? No pretences—eh?”
Mrs. Mel did not answer, and Old Tom jogged the reins and chuckled, and asked his donkey if he wanted to be a racer.